Live Review : Thrice + Refused + Gouge Away @ Academy, Manchester on 31st October 2019

It seems like an age since I last reviewed a gig, but in fact it's only little under a month - it appears time does not fly when you’re not having fun. Fortunately, my first reviewing gig back is for a co-headline treat. Both Thrice and Refused don’t visit England that often (well, certainly not the North West), so I’m eager to catch a couple of my formative musical acts in the flesh for only the second or third time. As always I jump on the train, hoping that I’m not going to be held hostage to some trick or treat irony from Transport for Wales (spoiler: a rail replacement bus on the journey home turned out to be the trick).

Gig ReviewAuthor : Matt Fraser4 November 2019AcademyGouge Away, Refused, Thrice, Academy, Manchester, 2019, Live Review, Matt Fraser, Johann WierzbickiComment

Live Review : Beyond The Black + Mister Misery @ Rebellion, Manchester on October 30th 2019

Any assertion or illusion that symphonic Metal does not have a following here in the UK is shattered by the fact that Rebellion is heaving on a Wednesday. Not that Beyond the Black would accept that label. When we speak to them earlier they distance themselves from that particular genre positioning themselves as more melodic metal. As far as I am concerned you can call what they do Bob for all I care. What matters is that it is well made, well performed and beautifully orchestrated. But more about Beyond the Black in a mo.

Live Review : Black Star Riders + Stone Broken + Wayward Sons @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on October 27th 2019

Having had the pleasure of seeing all the bands on tonight’s bill before, there's a rather pleasant feeling in the Autumnal air heading to the gig. All three are peddling new wares at the moment. It’s a killer bill, with each one offering something a bit different from each other.

Live Review : Sunn O))) + Anna Von Hausswolff @ The Albert Hall, Manchester on October 27th 2019

Anna Von Hausswolff is the personification of effortless cool. She alludes such arty coolness that she makes everyone else in room seem like gorky teenagers with haircuts courtesy of their mums. She and her band of equally hip dudes started slowly and ethereally. There is no typical drums or bass here and the solitary ghostly notes meander their way across the majestic setting of Manchester’s Albert Hall.

Live Review : Conjurer + Earth Moves + Armed For Apocalypse @ Star and Garter, Manchester on October 25th 2019

This is not an ordinary review but then again last Friday was not an ordinary day. I had my plans and they were watertight. I would head to London for work and then come back in time to jog across the road from Piccadilly Station to the Star and Garter for Conjurer. What could go wrong? Well I hadn’t banked on someone going walkabout on the tracks by Wembley. So when I arrived at London Euston to get the train that would get me in just in time for Armed for the Apocalypse, I discovered the station was closed and there was no trains North.

Live Review : Kris Barras Band + Elles Bailey @ Academy 3, Manchester on October 25th 2019

There's a real buzz in the air surrounding these guys at the moment. A band fronted by yep, you guessed it Kris Barras, they are literally taking the UK by storm, treading the boards up and down the country in support of their third album; the recently released “Light It Up” and, by the sound of things on social media, they are literally doing just that, playing to near capacity and sell out crowds every night. Tonight sees the 15 date tour rolling into Manchester once again this year. Early in February, I saw Kris and the boys play at the Deaf Institute, but tonight sees them take a step up and play a cracking venue in the Academy 3, a credit indeed to just how their powerful high energy mix of rock, blues and country are turning people's heads and blowing them away wherever they play.

Gig ReviewAuthor : Phil Beswick25 October 2019Academy 3Kris Barras Band, Academy 3, Manchester, 2019, Phil Beswick, Gregg HowarthComment

Live Review : Pete Way Band + Burn Out Wreck @ The Tivoli, Buckley on October 25th 2019

Sadly the motorway gods are not kind to me tonight and I manage to completely miss The Clan due to sitting in traffic on the M56 for far longer than I wanted to. Sorry The Clan, I’ll catch you again soon no doubt.

Burnt Out Wreck are a band I’m not familiar with, and they are a proper old-skool metal band. They sound an awful lot like early Saxon, I think because the vocals are very similar, but not in a “this sounds just like a Saxon song” way, more of a “this sounds like a song that Saxon might have written” way. So similar, without plagiarism.

Live Review : Lost Angels + Saints Of Sin + Takeaway Thieves @ The Layton Club in Blackpool on October 23rd 2019

Bit of a last-minute one this. Was told about it by Neil from the Takeaway Thieves the previous weekend and asked if I fancied coming up to cover it. Hmm. Blackpool from where I live at teatime on a weeknight? Not sure about that, I mean I love the Takeaway Thieves but I don’t know the other support band and who the hell are Lost Angels anyway? Well actually they are a bit of a supergroup, I will explain shortly, and when I realised who they were I immediately changed my mind and prayed to the gods of the M6 for an easy run. Sure enough we got to the venue in plenty of time and as the Grumpy One went in search of beer I marvelled that this cracking little venue exists in the upstairs of what, from the outside, is a fairly standard working mens club in the middle of a housing estate!

Live Review : The Massive Weekend @ The Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool on October 19th 2019

Local band Apriori open the show today, and do a damn fine job of it too. They have changed a lot since I last saw them. Previous vocalist Mouse is now the drummer, his brother Tony still plays the guitar but also handles lead vocals, and new boy Mark covers pretty much all other bases on an impressive bank of keyboards. I’ve seen bands play with a drum machine before but I think this is the first time I’ve seen bass played on a keyboard, with feet!

Live Review : The Massive Weekend @ The Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool on October 18th 2019

It’s been a helluva week. I started out by getting caught up in civil insurrection in Spain, got home intact thankfully only to come down with some variety of D&V bug that completely knocked me out for a few days. So it was a fragile Jo that trundled up the M6 to Blackpool on the Friday afternoon to attend the Massive Weekend. Massive because both nights feature local Lancashire lads Massive Wagons as headliners, ably supported by a plethora of some of the best up and coming bands on the circuit.

Live Review : Eyehategod + Billyclub + Gandalf The Green @ Rebellion, Manchester on October 14th 2019

Huddersfield’s Gandalf the Green have both a fantastic moniker and a massive Electric Wizard fanboy crush. They trade in massive scuzzy fuzzy riffs and psychedelic widdlings. What they do is under-produced and rawer than Sushi that is still swimming around the pool but is full of passion. This is a band that is loving the music they are playing and the fact they are playing it in front of a paying audience (admittedly not theirs).

Live Review : Primordial Presents @ Rebellion in Manchester on October 12th 2019

Primordial radio is trading on that often used phrase that we as a group of fans of the same music are a family. This is the second of their “Primordial Presents” events, designed to move the friendships out of cyber space and into a bar. As the bond that binds us is music, they have thrown in four bands and also, as we are a caring and sharing community, they have made this a charity gig. Which is where I come in. When not badly writing reviews of little known Sludge metal acts, I work for Mind as their Strategic Lead for Greater Manchester and one of the two benefiting charities tonight is Manchester Mind.

Live Review : The Struts + King Nun + Kyle Falconer @ The Academy in Manchester on October 11th 2019

There was a time where Kyle Falconer was the bees knees and with his Indie darlings The View was the best big thing. Sadly something happened on the way to paradise and here we are first on at half seven to a half full Academy. Its ballsy angsty acoustic stuff and those who have made it in sing along with gusto.

I'm not one to take umbrage against a band and I usually look for the redeemable features in every act I review, however I may have met my match with King Nun.

Live Review : Between The Buried And Me @ Academy 2, Manchester on October 9th 2019

This is hardcore prog metal gigging, not for fair-weather fans that once saw Dream Theater at Download and rather liked that 'Pull Me Under' song. Advertised as an “Evening with”, its two sets format and nearly three hours in length makes it a gift to long standing Between The Buried and Me fans and frankly inaccessible to everyone else. Essentially this unashamed celebration of what makes Between the Buried and Me so wonderful and intriguing, is firmly for the initiated (there is not a person in the room that doesn’t know every word and every chord).

Live Review : The Wildhearts + The Professionals + Janus Stark @ The Live Rooms, Chester on October 7th 2019

Why is it I’ve never seen The Wildhearts before?, I think to myself as I’m driving across the M56 heading for Chester. For a band of some 30 year standing and myself, a rock fan of some 40 years, I have to say that I’m slightly perplexed at the fact that our paths haven’t yet crossed before. Perhaps it’s because I’m lazy in my musical choices at times, or maybe that when the Geordie superstars first burst onto the scene I was still shaking my poodle mullet to the likes of Whitesnake and Kiss, with my heavier musical tastes grinding right to a halt no heavier than Judas Priest or Motorhead. Either way, tonight we’re putting it right and leaping at the opportunity to review one of the hardest working class, self- imploded bands that have ever graced the UK’s music scene, and who are currently busy on part 2 of their tour supporting their first album in 10 years, “Renaissance Men”. As well as re-education on what I've been missing out on, I’m also hoping that they will rip me a new one in the process by ways of a suitable punishment.

Live Review : Revival Black (Album Launch) + Novacrow + Dead Rebel + King Voodoo @ The Zanzibar in Liverpool on October 5th 2019

Liverpool. To quote a member of tonight’s headline band “it’s an odd place to gig. Everyone is IN a band so nobody wants to go and SEE a band”. Yep, not tonight though as the sold-out Zanzibar club can attest. So we walk into the dark, red-lit, womb-like space not really knowing what to expect in terms of show or crowd. But hey ho, the drinks are cheap, the toilets are nice and there’s a comfy chair for the Grumpy One; there may even be cake later. Let’s go.

Live Review : Sleep + Pharaoh Overlord @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on October 5th 2019

As I skipped out of my house filled with excitement and expectation, I found it hard to describe to my disparaging other half just how important Sleep are. A clumsy “they are the Doom Metal Beatles” is as far as I got and whilst a lazy comparison, it is actually rather apt. if you are currently producing or have produced anything in even a vague orbit of Doom, then you will have been influenced by “Holy Mountain”. This includes tonight’s openers Pharaoh Overlord, who are actually bonkers Finish post-rockers Circle getting a mutual love of stoner rock out of their collective systems.

Gig ReviewAuthor : Stewart Lucas8 October 2019O2 RitzSleep, O2 Ritz, Manchester, Live Review, 2019, Doom, Stoner, Pharaoh OverlordComment

Live Review : The Burning Crows + B4time + Blood Moon @ The Tivoli, Buckley on October 4th

Let me tell you about the first time I encountered The Burning Crows. It was all the way back in 2012, at a Hard Rock Hell event in Pwlhelli. I walked into Stage 2 to find a band I’d never seen before on stage and literally stopped in my tracks. Mesmerised, mouth open, I watched this group of four young men weave an intricate and delicate mix of great music, good humour and fantastic hair and was instantly hooked. Grumpy Twat asked if I wanted to go and get a drink? I’m not moving. Go and see our friends? Nope, still not moving, I need to savour every note of this. So began a somewhat one-sided love affair that has persisted throughout the last seven years, culminating in tonight.

Gig ReviewAuthor : Jo Crosby8 October 2019The TivoliThe Tivoli, Buckley, 2019, Live Review, The Burning Crows, B4time, Blood MoonComment

Live Review : Static-X + SOiL + Wednesday 13 + Dope @ O2 Ritz, Manchester on October 3rd 2019

It is the eternal rule. When you cannot be bothered with a night out, you go on to have the best night ever.

Now don't get me wrong, I've been positively horny with joy for a long time over this line up. I often jest I am a child of the nu-metal generation, but honestly, I'd wear my bondage pants to work if I thought I could get away with it (and if they fit me........... never mind). The happiest memories of my entire life revolve around gigs and albums and songs and bands and sneaking into the Krazyhouse when I was dramatically underage.

Live Review : Touché Amoré + Deafheaven + Portrayal Of Guilt @ Academy 2, Manchester on October 2nd 2019

Unfortunately, thanks to a crash on the M56, I miss the opening act on tonight’s bill (sorry Portrayal of Guilt!). I put a positive spin on the situation by thinking that it might help the cause; co-headline gigs, especially those with intense bands such as Touché Amoré and Deafheaven, can sometimes be hard work. How wrong I am, as both bands tonight deliver masterclasses in their art.