PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
First act of the evening were London’s own Designs of Chaos a five piece setup that deliver head splitting vocals with demonic beats finished off with some brilliantly catchy riffage. Listing their influences as Lamb of God, Metallica, Opeth and Black Sabbath you can kind of imagine what I mean by the first sentence. Set opener of “No Turning Back” woke up the already busy Underworld crowd very nicely, their progressive/thrash styling’s be very well received, Personal favourite of the set was the closer “Plague of Cannibals” with its rapid guitar intro and hypnotic beat throw in a couple of very nice time changes and those head splitting vocals I mentioned earlier and you’ll see why.
Full set list: No Turning Back, Fractured Infected, Melody of Murder, Bleed For Me, Plague of Cannibals
Rating: 7/10 very good guys!
Next up are the undeadingly awesome vampires who flew bombers during WWII, yes the one and only Stuka Squadron! Joined tonight by Baron Von Hammerstien for the first time on the drums of destruction. Opening up with “Tales of the Ost” the fun loving yet intimidating, blood drinking demons of the night have the increasing audience in the palm of their hands, the now legendary “We Drink Blood” which adorns the back of many baying fans t shirts receives the same reception.
Their brilliant fusion of slightly disturbing lyrics, Brutally brilliant drums with exciting riffs and a front man who quite honestly scares the shit out of me all wrapped up in leather, flying goggles, fangs and blood – what’s not to love! Finishing off with “Zabulon’s Inferno” complete with ritual (attempted) sacrifice of bass wielding Lord Graham Pyre by lead singer James Duke Fang-Begley their time on stage comes to an end far too quickly and they retire back to the crypt for a naked virgin or two (or was a nice hot cup of coca?)
Full Set list: Tales of the Ost, Stuka Squadron, We Drink Blood, On The Volga Bridge, Zabulon’s Inferno
Rating: a blood spilling 8/10
Ok so how do you follow a group vampires playing awesome tunes that’s right you put a group of smokingly hot leather clad girls in the form of the mighty Hysterica! The Swedish all female five piece certainly are very pleasant to look at and not only that they can play!
Opening up with the brilliant “Heels of Steel” pounding guitars at their head banging best makes this is a fantastic opener. To be entirely honest it’s a little hard to concentrate on the music here being male and all that but suffice it to say the now full Underworld was loving Hysterica, I did however at one point think they were playing Europe’s “The Final Countdown” the girls leave the stage after closing on “Breaking the Walls”.
Full set list: Heels of steel, Metalwar, Fighters of the century, Halloween, Message from the dark, Spirit of the age, We are the undertakers, Breaking the walls.
Rating: 7/10
Ok ok so we have had the face melting Designs of Chaos followed by the blood drinking Stuka Squadron followed by the beautiful Hysterica who on earth is brave enough to play headline over these three fantastic supports? Well you already know if you read the title properly that’s right the triumphant return of London’s Nightlord this was if I am not mistaken (I might well be, yes it has been known) their first headline show for 17 years (I had the great pleasure of seeing them support Onslaught a few weeks prior) and actually I was bloody excited.
Ferenc and the guys took to the stage and opened up the can of British Thrash on the audience with opening track “Reign” with is awesome galloping bassline intro and the superb guitars of Ferenc and James, a few songs in and we are treated to a new slab of Nightlord in the form of “Sin Eater” a great indication of future things, next up was “Vote For Me” a song which is rumoured to have influenced Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” we had another treat of new material with “Turn Of The Tide” followed by “Cult Of The Moon” a slow paced opening which builds into a hypnotic drum led slice of proper thrash, Nightlord gave their fans an encore of “Dark Night Dance” and their return was completed.
Full set list: Reign, The Final Book, Practice Makes Perfect, Sin Eater *NEW, Vote For Me, Twisted Out Of Mind, Turn Of The Tide *NEW, Cult Of The Moon, Holy Inquisition – encore Dark Night Dance
Rating: A blistering 9/10 – welcome back guys!
All Photo’s courtesy of Linda Heron Photography with all rights reserved.
