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
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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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