World Possession Tour

 

Tour Notes:  World Possession Tour Part 1
The North-american tour beginn disastrously for the band. The first inkling of trouble occurred shortly before the band werre due to fly out to Canada when Mantas fell seriously ill with a mixture of glandular fever and chicken pox. Scheduled shows were immediately postponed for two weeks (the gap between the Canadian and American dates effectively reduced to zero), but Mantas condition worsened, leaving the band with no option but to play the shows with stand-in guitarists, both local Newcastle lads, Les Cheetham (from Avenger) and Dave Irwin (Fist). Couple this calamity with immigration hassles, last minute permits for the new boys, and only 48 hours rehearsal and you can understand why the Venom road show trundled off to a fairly subdued and severely dispirited start. Neverless, the actual shows in Canada, all held in large 3 000-4 000 seaters, proved to be real killers, drawing a remarkable reaction from both band (determined not to blow it) and audience, even though there had been literally no time to inform the fans of the line-up shuffle prior to the actual gigs themselves!

More trouble! Mantas should have arrived in New york, ready to hitch up with the band and play, at perhaps the most strangest and possibly prestigous gig of the tour - Studio 54, the most famous disco hall in the world, which was popularised by the movie, Saturday Night Fever. Located in the heart of Manhattan, within vomiting distance of Empire State Building, the club had just been opened as a rock venue with Venom the first band to play there. But, although his illness had been overcome, he was the victim of a massive clerical balls-up instigated by HM Government over the whereabouts of his passport. In short he was stranded back in Newcastle and was not back in business until two days later for the gig in Chicago on April 5th. All in all Venom played 13 concerts on this tour between  March 24 and April 28, 4 gigs in Canada and 9 in USA. Unfortunatley the crowd was not exposed to the mayhem the band has prepared for because there was not enough stage space to accomodate the exorbitant ammount of lightning and pyro, so sacrifices was to be grudgingly made at almost every concert

Venom headline the Rantarock festival in Virrat, Finland on June 21. The guys really enjojed the gig, much because the festival was located by the sea so they had no problems to get admittance to use a lot of fireworks and explosions.  
 On saturday, the 13th of September, the band headlined the Metal Hammer Festival in Loreley, Germany in front of 12.000 people. It was a day of much trouble. The contract with the promoters was specifying £5.000 of fireworks that the promoters should arrange. However, when the band arrived in the afternoon they realized that nothing had been prepared for the show. Venom threaten to cancel their appearance and soon the police was informed about the situation.They feared a riot and the promoters was instructed to buy and install fireworks. Finally, slightly deleated, Venom did enter the stage and delivered a show that the crowd expected and deserved. The whole event was filmed and later broadcast (in form of selected highlights from all festivalbands) on German television. A couple of months later Channel 5 released this on video, featuring Seven Gates Of Hell, including Crono's bassolo.

 

Tour Dates:

Year	Date	City	Venue	Country	Support Act	Notes
1985	24 March	Montreal	Spectrum	Canada	Slayer	With Davy Irwin & Les Cheetham on guitars
1985	25 March	Montreal	Spectrum	Canada	Slayer / Razor	With Davy Irwin & Les Cheetham on guitars
1985	28 March	Quebec	Quebec City	Canada	Slayer	With Davy Irwin & Les Cheetham on guitars
1985	31 March	Toronto	Concert Hall	Canada	Slayer	With Davy Irwin & Les Cheetham on guitars
1985	3 April	New York	Moonshine Studio 54	USA	Slayer / Exodus	With Davy Irwin & Les Cheetham on guitars, rescheduled from 20 March
1985	4 April	Cleveland	Variety Theatre	USA	Slayer
1985	5 April	Chicago	Aragon Ballroom	USA	Slayer / Exodus	Mantas back
1985	6 April	Milwaukee	Billy's Old Mill	USA	Slayer
1985	12 April	San Francisco	Kabuki Theater	USA	Slayer
1985	18 April	San Diego	California Theatre	USA	Slayer
1985	19 April	Los Angeles	The Palladium	USA	Slayer / Exodus
1985	23 April	Pomona	Pomona Valley Auditorium	USA	Slayer / Dark Angel	Cancelled (?)
1985	28 April	Santa Monica	Civic Auditorium	USA		Cancelled (?)
1985	21 June	Virrat	Rantarock Festival	Finland	Blackfoot
1985	14 September	Rheine	Loreley Metal Hammer Festival	Germany	Metallica	Venom crowd: 12 000

 

 

Tour Lineup
CRONOS  (Conrad Lant)   -   Vocals & Bass Guitar 
MANTAS  (Jeffrey Dunn)   -   Guitar
ABADDON  (Tony Bray)   -   Drums

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Setlist:
The setlist stayed pretty much the same on the tour, with a couple of differences. On the first six gigs (the ones without MANTAS) Venom played Too Loud For The Crowd twice every night! Not only as the opening track, but also as the last encore. The track Powerdrive was dropped from the set after the seventh gig in Chicago. Also - worth mention is that the song Nightmare were played on the whole tour, six months before it´s release on single.

Too Loud (For The Crowd)
Black Metal
Die Hard
Nightmare
Countess Bathory
7 Gates Of Hell
(Powerdrive) - Only played the first seven gigs
In Nomine Satanas
Welcome To Hell
Buried Alive
Don't Burn The Witch
Warhead
Teacher's Pet - Poison - Teacher's Pet (medley)
Leave Me In Hell
Satanachist
Schizo
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Bloodlust
Witching Hour
 

Tour Notes:  World Possession Tour Part 2
The British leg of the World Possession tour part 2 begins in Newcastle 3rd October and follows with three more gigs culminating with an appearance at the Hammersmith Odeon in London. The band, as subtle and sedate as ever, was using a gold Rolls Royce as a tour bus, and did spend £1,000 per gig on pyrotechnics alone. From the beginning there was a ten date tour set up but due to the smallness of some places they where not permitted to use pyrotechnics and therefore decided to cancel six dates. The tour continues with 17 gigs spread over two months in Italy, Germany, Denmark, Holland and France.

Tour Dates Part 2:

Year	Date	City	Venue	Country	Support Act	Notes
1985	3 October	Newcastle	Mayfair	England	Exodus / Chariot	Reschedule from 27 Sept. Crowd: 400
1985	5 October	Manchester	Apollo	England	Exodus / Chariot
1985	6 October	Birmingham	Odeon	England	Exodus / Chariot	Reschedule from 7 Oct.
1985	8 October	London	Hammersmith Odeon	England	Exodus / Chariot
1985	12 October	Rome	Teatro Tenda	Italy
1985	13 October	Florence		Italy
1985	15 October	Turin		Italy	Exodus / Atomkraft
1985	16 October	Milan	Teatro Tenda	Italy
1985	17 October	Padua		Italy
1985	19 October	Nurnberg	Hemmerleinhalle	Germany	Exodus / Atomkraft	Crowd: 1 000
1985	20 October	Munich		Germany
1985	22 October	Hamburg	Markthalle	Germany	Exodus / Atomkraft
1985	24 October	Copenhagen	Saga	Denmark	Exodus	Atomkraft cancelled
1985	26 October	Osnabruck		Germany
1985	28 October	Amsterdam	Paradiso	Holland		Crowd: 900
1985	29 October	Cambrai	Palais Des Grott	France
1985	30 October	Rouen		France	Exodus / Chariot
1985	31 October	Clermont Ferrand	Maison Des Sports	France	Exodus

 

Setlist:
The same setlist was played on the second leg as the first of the World Possession Tour. The only change was the running order, which slightly part from each other. The Legions who did witness the mayhem at Birmingham was treated with a blistering version of the Judas Priest classic Hell Bent For Leather before the last encore, Witching Hour. In Venoms rendering named Hell Bent For Metal.

Too Loud (For The Crowd)
Black Metal
Die Hard
Nightmare
Countess Bathory
7 Gates Of Hell
Teacher's Pet - Poison - Teacher's Pet (medley)
Buried Alive
Don't Burn The Witch
In Nomine Satanas
Welcome To Hell
Warhead
Schizo
Satanachist
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Leave Me In Hell
Bloodlust
Witching Hour

 

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