Gigs staged in the shadow of a festival often can be hit and miss affairs. And with a lot of the Northern Ireland metallians returning from D(r)ownload turning left virtually as soon as they docked and heading straight down the motorway to Dublin for Slayer and Anthrax, you could have …
Read More »The Quireboys – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 11 March 2016
On an unusually mild, bright early Spring evening in our wee neck of the woods off I set to what, according to the poster promises to be a great night of good old fashioned rock n roll.. As the lights go down, the opening band Massive Wagons take to the …
Read More »The Distortion Project – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 13 February 2016
It started back on the cusp of the millennium, in the pub next door, when a group of like-minded friends came together and decided to put on a few metal shows of a Saturday afternoon. Fifteen years later, those ‘RocKD’ sessions (they take their name from that of the bar, …
Read More »Soulfly – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 3 February 2016
Max Cavalera certainly believes in keeping it in the family. Or maybe it’s a case of keep your friends close but your family closer. Whatever it may be, the last couple of Soulfly tours have gone out under the ‘Maximum Cavalera’ banner, with bands featuring both his sons and his …
Read More »Evil Scarecrow – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 14 November 2015
There are occasions when you go to a gig genuinely not knowing what to expect. Having witnessed the lunacy that is an Evil Scarecrow show for the first and only time at Bloodstock last summer, your PM team had a rough idea of the madness that was about to descend …
Read More »Y&T – Belfast, Limelight 1 – 11 November 2015
For the band and fans alike, Y&T‘s annual end of year UK tours have become something akin to a pilgrimage. Despite being more than four decades into their career – and not having released any new material in a little more than five of those years – Dave Meniketti and …
Read More »High On Fire + Slomatics + Bask – Belfast, Limelight 2 – Monday 9 November
The combination of it being a Monday night – and the coldest and stormiest one of the year so far – and the fact that half of Belfast’s metallians had decamped south of the border for the first of the Megahuff/Lamb Of God co-headline arena shows did not initially bode …
Read More »Wolf / Enforcer – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 10 September 2015
Sometimes you just can’t beat a night of good old-fashioned heavy fucking metal. No airs. No graces. No genres. Just heavy fucking metal. And that’s exactly what we got tonight, as the titanic (sic) triple Swedish attack of Wolf, Enforcer and Dynamite rolled into Belfast on this early Autumn afternoon. …
Read More »Beholder – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 24 September 2015
Northern Ireland is currently gripped in the greatest financial scandal in its chequered history. It is a scandal which already has practically crippled the economy south of the border, and brought down at least one government there. It has politicians running for cover, and has resulted in the current well-publicized …
Read More »Gojira – Belfast, Limelight 1 – 27 August 2015
Seven hundred and thirty one. That is exactly how many days it had been since Gojira last appeared in Belfast – when they completely wiped the stage with Bring Me The Horizon and Bullet For My Valentine at the annual Belsonic festival – and this much-anticipated return, one of two …
Read More »The Bronx / Torche – Belfast, Limelight 1 27/05/2015
This evening’s gig – featuring the somewhat ironically named LA punks The Bronx and Florida-based grinders Torche – was originally scheduled to be two separate affairs, with the two bands playing in neighbouring venues within the same complex. However, the promoters – and, co-incidentally, the venue owners – quickly managed …
Read More »Sinocence – Belfast, Limelight 2 28/03/2014
For any artist, the launch of a new work is a special occasion. For Norn Iron’s premier heavyweights, Sinocence, the unveiling of their new EP – the second instalment in their ‘No Gods, No Masters’ triptych – called for that something a little extra special. And so the band assembled …
Read More »The Answer – Belfast, Limelight 2 – 06/03/2015
Hometown gigs, for any band – but especially those who have reached a certain international standing – are always a mixture of anticipation, excitement and nervousness for all concerned, for both the artist and their audience. Especially more so when the band in question is premiering new material – most …
Read More »Sabaton – Belfast, Limelight 1 06/12/2014
It was in the first two decades of the ninth century that the chroniclers of ancient Ulster first recorded the arrival of the fiercesome Norsemen, as they inflicted on this north-eastern corner of Ireland the same fate they had wrought elsewhere on the island and also across Britain and those …
Read More »The Answer to ‘Raise A Little Hell’ in March
Northern Ireland’s hardest working hard rockers, The Answer (pictured right), have confirmed that they are to release their new album, Raise A Little Hell’, via Napalm Records on March 9 in UK and Europe. Writing on their Facebook page at the weekend, the band said: “If you folks thought we …
Read More »Cursed Sun – Belfast, Limelight 2, 01/11/2014
Sometimes I feel like I live in Belfast’s most famous music venue rather than five minutes ’round the corner, given the amount of time I spend there… this was my something like my 26th or 27th gig here this year so far (a that’s not counting the amount of evenings spent …
Read More »Orange Goblin + St Vitus – Belfast, Limelight 2, 31/10/2014
Halloween. One of the most important nights of the year… the one when the veil between the worlds comes down… or when spidey dickheads get to cross-dress without fear of ridicule from their equally spidey dickhead mates and make even bigger drunken pricks of themselves than usual… or, in the …
Read More »Anathema – Belfast, Limelight 2 18/08/2014
Following on from their success in the recent Progressive Music Awards – at which they lifted the ‘Anthem’ gong for the eponymously-titled from their most recent ‘Distant Satellites’ opus magnificus (of which more anon) – Liverpool experimental progsters Anathema were obviously in great mood when they took that short trip across the …
Read More »Mordred – Belfast, Limelight 2 23/08/2014
When any band is regarded as truly innovative at a certain moment in musical time, the main question which must surely come back to haunt them, nigh on a generation later, is whether or not they are still as relevant and their innovation as impactful as it was ‘back in …
Read More »Onslaught + Artillery @ Belfast, Limelight 2 – 14/07/2014
I seriously think it says something about heavy metal gigs when there is one thing you notice which is conspicuous by it’s absence – and that is security! Apart from one guy nonchalantly leaning against the DJ booth, and another languidly lazing at the top of the steps leading to …
Read More »