Tygers came roaring into Hastings
Tygers of Pan Tang and Lead Feather at The Carlisle, Hastings 10 April 2025
As a young teenager, I would spend hours alone in my room listening to music. I had a small audio cassette rack which contained a selection of albums, including Motörhead’s Ace of Spades, AC/DC’s If You Want Blood, Led Zeppelin 4, and The Cage by Tygers of Pan Tang. Along with a few other audio cassettes, these four albums formed the basis of my musical taste as an adult. I’ve listened to them hundreds of times and probably know every word to every song – or at least something phonetically similar to every word!
As the years went by, my musical taste never really changed and my music collection certainly grew to include the back catalogues and further releases from all of these bands, but I never did get to see Tygers of Pan Tang Live until maybe 35 years later!
By the time I saw Tygers of Pan Tang perform live, Robb Weir was the only original member remaining in the lineup. There had been another version of the band without Rob that appeared in the mid-to-late-80s, but in 2000, Robb Weir reformed the band with a new lineup. This version of the Tygers also underwent changes but the current lineup has been pretty stable for a while with Rob Weir on guitar, Craig Ellis on drums, Jacopo ‘Jack’ Meille on vocals, Huw Holding on bass, and Francesco Marras on guitar.
So this is not the same band that created The Cage, it’s not a cover band playing Tygers’ songs, and it’s certainly not a tribute act. What it is, is an evolution of that original band from way back in 1978 that performs and honours the songs from the band’s back catalogue with fantastic style, but also, has continued to write consistently well-crafted new material throughout the years. If you haven’t heard 2023’s Bloodlines yet, I recommend you take a listen because it is a stunning album with some fantastic playing from all concerned and great songs which stand proudly alongside anything else that has come before from the band. If you like watching grey-haired old men hobbling around a stage, just performing songs that they wrote 50 years ago then this isn’t the band for you, Tygers in 2025 is an energetic powerful band that performs their older material as well, if not better than it’s ever been done previously, alongside newer tracks that really push their sound into the modern age.
The Carlisle in Hastings is gaining a good reputation, and not only locally, as a great little venue, and it is nicely full tonight (not sold out, but hey, it is a Thursday night!). Tonight, the support act is Lead Feather, a self-proclaimed heavy rock group, down from London to give us a great set of chunky classic rock sounding goodness. I hadn’t heard of them before tonight but discovered that they were recently formed by their be-hatted guitarist, Simon Hurts. The four-piece band include Thanos on drums, Daniel Devis on bass and vocal powerhouse, Apostolos L.
Tonight’s set opens up with heavy but catchy Silver Train, nicely showing off the band’s monster-sized grooves and Apostolos’ range. Danger Zone from their 2025 six-track EP, Roll The Dice, is next, followed by most of the rest of the EP, including Shoot For the stars with a nice little Hendrix-inspired breakdown and a bit of crowd participation. They close their set with Trouble Man, with gentler moments, it builds nicely into a real stomper, with some great guitar from Simon Hurts. In fact his playing throughout is top-notch. Lead Feather sound awesome, clearly influenced by some of the greats that went before them but mixed in with a modern take on that classic sound.
Tygers of Pan Tang take to the stage and go straight into Euthanasia, the opening track from their first album, 1980’s Wild Cat and a regular opener for the Tygers. The gig at the Carlisle also marks the 44th anniversary of the release of their second album, 1981’s Spellbound, and as such, the next song to be played, Gangland, is the first of four to be played from that album tonight.
The set then moves on to the Crazy Nights album for Love Don’t Stay, a classic from the Sykes era. Then we jump in time to Keeping Me Alive from 2020’s Ambush, which is the first track from the newer era of Tygers that is played tonight.
2023’s release Bloodlines then gives us the first of a couple of songs, Back For Good with its sleazy groove and great ‘call back’ vocals on the chorus and breakdown and of course some superb guitar work (as usual) from Francesco and Robb.
Next up is a real treat for me, as Paris By Air, from 1983’s The Cage album, still sits in my top few favourite tunes of all time.
Rock Candy, the opening track from 2008’s Animal Instinct, came next. This album was the first to feature Jack Meille on vocals and has just been remixed and released – if you haven’t already done so, it is most definitely worth a listen.
Take It, is the next track from Spellbound to feature in tonight’s set, followed by the classic Slave to Freedom from Wild Cat.
Fire On The Horizon follows, with its fast-paced guitar parts giving Francesco another opportunity to show exactly why he is the correct person to fill the second guitar position in Tygers, which, lets face it must be a pretty daunting position to fill considering who has come before!
1981’s Don’t Stop By is next on the list, followed by the classic old school 80’s NWOBHM sound of Suzie Smiled from Wild Cat.
Hellbound is the 4th and last track from Spellbound to be played tonight, fast and furious with a great chorus, just like all the best Tygers tracks.
In 1982, Tygers of Pan Tang covered the 60’s tune, Love Potion No. 9, which had previously been covered by bands including the Searchers. They turned everything up a notch or two, sped it up, added some John Sykes and a touch of Tygers Magic Sauce and a fan favourite was born, and that’s what closed the set tonight.
You would expect a world-class act such as Tygers of Pan Tang to deliver, and that they did – in spades – and to see them in such an intimate venue as The Carlisle was a real treat, not only for a self-confessed Tygers fanboy such as myself but for everyone at the venue. If you haven’t seen Tygers of Pan Tang yet, make sure that you add them to your ‘bands I really must see’ list, you won’t regret it.
Tygers of Pan Tang will be playing at larger venues throughout the UK later in the year.
For more information about the bands and their up-and-coming gigs visit:
Tygers of Pan Tang | @tygersofpantangofficial | www.tygersofpantang.com
Lead Feather | @leadfeatherrocks | www.leadfeatherrocks.com
