22. Flying On New Wings – To Celebrations

The next tour was staged in November/December and the set was similar to the “Storyteller”-jubilee, consisting of a short “greatest hits”-set and the entire “Wings”-album afterwards. Both were recorded for a double live album to be out in early 2008.
   Accordingly, the setlist was divided in two parts: The first part was: “When We Were Younger”/ Back Street Kid”/ “Out Of The Shadows”/ “Like Brothers We Stand”/ “How Far Jerusalem”/ “Dragons Are Real”/ “Les Morts Dansant”/ “All England’s Eyes”/ “Vigilante”/ “Kingdom Of Madness”.
   After a break the second part the entire WOH-album was rendered: “Days Of No Trust“/ “Wild Swan“/ “Start Talking Love“/ “One Step Away“/ “It Must Have Been Love“/ “Different Worlds“/”Pray For The Day“/ “Don't Wake The Lion (Too Old To Die Young)“ and finally , as an encore, “Sacred Hour”.
   “Days Of No Trust” got a new intro. The fans generally loved the song selection. Notable was, that only one song from the last album had been dropped from the list (“Thank You For The Day”) and that “Different Worlds” made its debut live as it hadn’t even been played on the original “Wings”-tour in 1988.
   Sadly, Kex Gorin died in December 2007, only a few days after the band had played a charity concert to raise funds for his medication. Fully autographed Rodney Matthews prints were auctioned, more than 10.000 pounds were raised and the whole thing would have been a real success if Kex’ lifespan had been a little longer.
   At that gig a shortened version of the tour programme was played and even one of the missing songs of the “Wings”-period was inserted, namely “C’est La Vie”.
  The album was out on 22nd March and included all the songs played on the tour except “Les Morts Dansant” and “C’est La Vie”. Both songs were made available for free on the official MAGNUM website soon after so that everyone could complete the album.
   The cover was a Rodney Matthews drawing again – a huge eagle leaving his nest on a peak in front of a bright red sun with snow-capped mountains in the background. It looked very impressive and was a swell motive for T-shirts...
  A second tour to support the album was arranged for May which would now take the band to continental Europe: Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic with a few gigs in the UK again. Al promised to insert some songs not having been played for a very long time and possibly even some new ones. Harry James had to take Jimmy’s seat behind the drums again as he was promoting his solo album at the same time.

   In the MAGNUM fan forum on the internet the idea came up to have a vote on the most wanted songs to return to the setlist. The majority of votes went to “Back To Earth”, so the band decided to play it again on the following tour. This was not the only surprise. They had decided to change the entire first part of the set which now was: “Back To Earth”/ “When We Were Younger”/ “We All Need To Be Loved”/ “You’ll Never Sleep”/ “Midnight”/ “Vigilante”/ “The Spirit”/  “Days Of No Trust“/ “Wild Swan“/ “Start Talking Love“/ “One Step Away“/ “It Must Have Been Love“/ “Different Worlds“/”Pray For The Day“/ “Don't Wake The Lion (Too Old To Die Young)“ “All England’s Eyes”/ “Kingdom Of Madness”.
   “You’ll Never Sleep” was premiered live as it hadn’t been rendered on the PAATBA-Tour and “We All Need To Be Loved” had never been played since the “Rock Art” tour in 1995. However, “The Spirit” was only performed at some concerts. Support bands were AWAKE in the UK and UXL during the European dates.