Beth Blade is in fine form tonight, but really is that a surprise? I’m not sure Beth and her merry band of Beautiful Disasters are capable of performing at less than 100%. Always endearing the Beautiful Disasters’ front woman and her band bring a charm and contagious enthusiasm to any show they play, exemplified by opening number the uplifting ‘Tonight I’m With You’.
Read MoreThis is the third experience I’ve had of Empyre (the first time being in a Library of all places) and like a fine wine they seem to be improving with each year. Constant touring and hard work has honed them into the tightly disciplined and impressively together band that grace the Waterloo’ stage tonight.
Read MoreOne of the things I like about the Tivoli (apart from the newly-refurbished jungle-themed ladies loos and the cheap rum) is that they always try to get at least one local band on the bill. This is a huge boost for the local rock scene, and I applaud it wholeheartedly.
Read MoreOriginally scheduled for last December, this show has gone through a number of proscriptive homes before finally settling here at the Academy. Alongside date and geographical location, the undercard has also going through a number of iterations. Those still expecting Crobot and Blue Pills are left equally disappointed and surprised by the appearance of the Black Spiders.
Read MoreTorrential thunderstorms around the UK and particularly here in Manchester threaten to wreck the evening before it gets underway with a half hours delay in starting, allowing more time for the drenched and sopping wet people to purchase a 2 pint pot of beer, grab the nibbles and take up a seat in the sold out show tonight.
Just after 8.00 pm the lights go down, and an enthusiastic cheer echoes around the AO Arena signalling the entrance of The Tubes. Dressed in rather colourful suits, the 1970’s San Francisco quintet kick tonight off nicely.
Read MoreThere is a level of cynicism about whether this truly is the end of the road for perennial rock monsters KISS. After all, this is the second time in four years that their never-ending final hurrah has wound up here in Manchester. Adding fuel to that fire is the fact that this is their second conclusive lap of victory around the world, having already done the farewell tour pizzazz 20 years ago. However, all that will they won't they gossip is put to one side as we stand to marvel at probably the purest and most unrefined personification of arena rock.
Read Moret’s been a while since I’ve been along to a gig at O2 Victoria Warehouse, so it's good to get my bearings again before Radar Festival is held here later this month. Whilst it’s sometimes reassuring for things to remain the same, I’ve got to say with this venue it’s not that great a trait. As usual while the photographers get direct access, the reviewers have to queue up with everyone else (not even affording us O2 priority access). What it means is it's a race against the clock and a 30min queue to get in for the opening support band. That’s not a great scenario for us or them I’d suggest.
Read MoreYou are unlikely to find “Somewhere in Time" in any list of the greatest albums of all time, in fact it would struggle to make any best heavy metal records countdown. However, it manages to hold a very special place in the hearts of Iron Maiden fans across the globe. For many of a certain age (including myself) it was our entry point, it was where we came in.
"Number of the Beast" may well have been the album that plunged them into the public perception and "Powerslave” may well have cemented them as an international commodity, but it was with "Somewhere in Time” that they became a household name.
Read MoreAccording to popular stereotypes, the Swiss are known for, amongst other things, Toblerone, Cuckoo Clocks and a calm neutrality. I don’t know about the first two, but no-one seems to have told Daxx and Roxane about the last!
When before they’ve even played a single note they are knocking back shots from a square bottle, you know this is a band that’s here for a good time not a long time. A delightfully madcap confection of classic rock riffage and eighties excess, they are a blur of energy, colour and fun from start to finish! Cal Wymann on lead guitar is a veritable dynamo, careening from one side of the stage to the other, vaulting from the riser with scant regard to logic or indeed safety.
Read MoreWhilst Vended, Graphic Nature and Lake Malice all sound very different, they share two very important pieces of DNA. Firstly, they are building their fanbases online utilising direct social media interaction as opposed to stagnant record label endorsed marketing technics. That true kinship and ownership comes across loud and clear tonight and the power dynamic between artist and fan seems to exist on a much more unified plane. The other unifying factor is the diversity and variance of their musical reference points.
Read MoreOpeners Kaine play basic metal. They're very Iron Maiden, the music is fast and furious and the band seem very angry about something. I'm trying to work out what they're singing about and it’s hard to decipher. It might be Bastille, it might be something made of steel. Either way they seem a bit pissed off about it! There’s a song called ‘Slave To The Grind’ but it's not that one, it's a double paced headbanger with a slow guitar bridge. Widdly instrumentals abound and there’s a huge amount of echo on the singer's voice.
Read MoreDespite being informed that the band would be onstage at 7.00 pm, I can see the queue is going around the corner as I approach. So, of course, I go for a beer across the road until I see no one outside the venue and then make my way in. Unsurprisingly it's packed as I enter, but us ROCKFLESH folks are a determined bunch and I squeeze through and up to the bar and merch. We've talked about merch prices a lot as a website, and £30 a tee tonight is very decent, but £70 for a fairly simple and plain orange rucksack is... interesting. In any case, there aren't any support bands tonight, so the sold-out venue is solely for Japanese rock band Man With A Mission (MWAM).
Read MoreSynthwave seems to be slowly embedding itself into the world of Rock & Metal these past few years. A relatively new genre of music that draws influence from both the music & neon lit cyberpunk-esque iconography of Sci-Fi and Horror Films of the 1980’s, it has been brought to the forefront of public consciousness by acclaimed acts such as Perturbator and Carpenter Brut.
Read MoreWhen you're a band from Mongolia playing traditional Mongolian instruments, doing traditional Mongolian throat warbling and weaving that into a metal-based rock show it must be kind of hard to pick a suitable support act. Tonight we are presented with Tau & The Drones Of Praise, (or, according to my notes before I managed to find them on the poster Tower and the Drums of Penis) a slightly frayed-at-the-edges bunch of Irish folk musicians who incorporate a touch of rock, a bit of rave and a lot of harmony into their sound.
Read MoreFirst up, we’ve got Defying Decay taking to the stage right after the doors swing open. The crowd's expectedly small at first, but begins to swell as they run through their energetic set. These guys bring the essence of bands like Wage War, Bad Omens and, tonight’s headliners, Ice Nine Kills. In fact, think Spineshank and early Slipknot, that late 90s nu-metal vibe coming across in abundance. But it's Crossfaith that echoes in my mind, only a more organic version. These Thai rockers from Bangkok have that same unashamed glee and energy in their performance, together with the variety of sounds delivered by their Japanese counterparts.
Read MoreOnce again we are dragging the impartiality klaxon out of its cupboard, as the fact that I am subjecting myself to the delights of the 2:45am coach back to Manchester probably says everything you need to know about my dedication to the church of Carcass. For a diehard Carcass fanboy like myself, their majestic return to their hometown 29 years after their last show here is a must-see. Even if the collective might of the rail unions had tried to scupper the whole shebang. You see Jeff, Bill and the boys are the most influential band to ever come out of Merseyside (yes I know that's a controversial view but it's true) and I'm sure I was not the only one to be disappointed that during the segment in last month’s Eurovision Final where past winners reinterpreted Liverpudlian classics, they hadn't roped in Lordi to serenade us with a version of ‘Exhume to Consume’.
Read MoreSweet Electric are the new outfit from Massive frontman Brad Marr having only been together for six months or so, and as the lights go down and the floor toms kick in, the band hit the stage in a Technicolor explosion, it’s fascinating to see the direction that Brad has taken his new musical endeavour. There’s a distinctly 70s glam vibe about Sweet Electric, with glitter, zebra print and lycra in abundance. No longer fettered by the guitar duties he undertook as part of Massive, Brad is having the time of his life, careering from one side of the stage to the other with a wild abandon. Resplendent in gold lycra and declaring “I feel as good as I look!”
Read MoreI'm going to give up trying to second-guess the musical whims of Manchester's metal hordes. I thought tonight would be heaving. I thought I would have to fight through battalions of metal warriors to get a decent shot at the front of the stage. You see in my head Distant are not just a buzz band, they got a bloody great air raid siren going off. They gave Lorna Shore a run for their money when they supported them last year and the new album is quite simply the last word in minimalistic brutality. I really thought everybody else had also got the memo that these are the new messiahs.
Read MoreThings tonight are not what they seem. A.A. Williams is deconstructed metal. All the pieces are there, just not in the configuration we expect. Support Zetra look like Mayhem if they went a little crazy in the B&Q chains and locks aisle, however they sound like the Human League. They seem to have escaped from the faux eighties. That non-existence facade of a decade that only actually exists in the fevered creative mind of showrunners. If Dustin and Suzie had formed a band in Stranger Things, it would have looked and sounded like Zetra. Its all very discombobulating.
Read MoreYou could think of far worse ways to spend a beautiful sunny day in Manchester on a Sunday evening. It wasn't just the heat outside that needed turning down, the heat is turned up to boiling point inside the Academy 2 with blistering performances all-round from perhaps some of the most underrated AOR and melodic bands still performing and going strong some 30 plus years after their inceptions. It’s certainly a mouth-watering affair and one that goes down better than the obligatory pint of overpriced lager from the bar. If value for money is your thing, then you’ve certainly got that in spade loads on the music on offer tonight.
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