FM - Show you that AOR is still a great genre in Rotherham!

April 6th 2013
Rotherham, HRH AOR Festival, UK

****1/2

Show you what AOR is all about!

FM ****1/2 are really impressive on the main stage today... They for a start look and sound like they do in their music video's, they might have aged a few years but watching them is magical. I remember as a kid when I used to watch MTV or listen to them on the radio and when their tracks or video's came on, you were uplifted and they were a band you could dance around your room to.

Opening with the track 'Tough Love' they explode into full Classic Rock mode and singer Steve Overland has great smooth Rock voice with a very small touch of gravel in his tone. Jim Kirkpatrick probably the most recent addition to the FM line-up with only being in the band for five years really fits in to the band and the licks sound perfect.

When they birst into 'I belong to the Night' you hear their great keyboard melodies mixed with catchy verses and a chorus you just wished you had written. This is one of my personal favourite FM songs and if you want to get into the band, I would maybe start with one like this or maybe the following track 'That Girl' which is taken off the bands album 'Indiscreet' which is to this day in my eyes one of the bands most perfect works. This album was released in 1986 and still sounds great in 2013.

FM know how to command a stage and pose and do everything you would want from an AOR band, you honestly can't ask more from a band that has been going since 1984 that is almost thirty years. They can go from Rock to Blues with tints of the Blues elements in the track 'Don't Stop' which has a great drum melody and some awesome guitar licks.

The thing I have always liked about FM is the big choruses and big sound and the way they lift you up and you can see as they go on in the set that the audience are feeling the same and they are singing every word. 'Love lies Dying' is so 80's sounding you can't believe it, and it's haunting and makes every hair on your body stand on end. This is a classic song and if you like AOR you cannot not listen to it this also comes off the great album 'Indiscreet' like following 'Hot Wired'.

Listen! to the Track 'Love lies Dying' Below...

Half the time you don't realise that FM had so many great songs, but when you hear them played your like I love this one and I love this one... and your gripped in, they have as much appeal as say Journey and Whitesnake but for some reason people don't talk about them in the same way. The guitars that open and merge into the magical 'Metropolis' are incredible and unbelievable and Jim Kirkpatrick plays them in a way that you just can't believe.

'Frozen Heart' is a nice 80's ballad and sets a nice interlude and the keyboards by Jem Davis are put in really nicely. They pick up the pass a little for the last two tracks'Bad Luck' and 'Burning my heart Down' that really close things up. You realise you love FM and that your going to start to check out their back catalogue again. Everyone is left with a good feeling and ready to Rock some more. FM have really impressed everyone that was in Rotherham today.

FM - Setlist

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Tough Love

I belong to the Night

That Girl

Don't Stop

Love lies Dying

Hot Wired

Does it feel like Love

Other side of Midnight

Metropolis

Over You

Crosstown Train

Frozen Heart

Bad Luck

Burning my heart Down

Review and Photo's by Dan Devour

Listen! to the track 'I belong to the the Night' Below...

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