Tag Archives: live review

Two gigs in two days for me at the Star And Garter, a new venue to me and very impressed with the acoustics, atmosphere and the bands they have playing there. Headliners Hollowstar were supported strongly by Florence Black and gig openers Matt Mitchell & The Coldhearts who warmed a …

Considering this was only the second Falling Eden gig, the first being way back in August 2018, they may have been nervous being first on a three band bill but any doubts were blown away as they tore into set opener ‘Falling Eden’. Their debut album Our Time Is Coming …

Ding ding! Round 1 of day 2 and first band of the day, London based District 13 gave us a highly entertaining nonet of songs considering they had been on the road since 4am. A dizzying array of musical dishes was served up for Sunday lunch as they kicked off …

Festival organizer Martin Short has a change of name for his annual festival and venue for 2019 so the Badass Bash now became Rockforce Festival and it was certainly a force to be reckoned with as 16 bands, all playing for free shook the rafters of the Waterloo Music Bar …

Sunday night at The Corporation, Sheffield and Last Great Dreamers are putting on a Christmas show with special guests  Leeds own Boomville which features guitarist Mark Yates of Terrorvision fame.  And they’ve also brought along with them compere and comedian Pete K Mally. It’s not every day you have a compere …

Tonight I headed out to The Picturedrome in Holmfirth as The Dead Daisies brought their Summer Tour 2018 to Yorkshire. The Dead Daisies aren’t actually a group, as such, but a collective of musicians assembled, only five years ago, by David Lowy and Jon Stevens. The Antipodean Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller? As …

Jamming jamming jamming! Sky Valley Mistress jammed more than Hartley’s during their seventeen song marathon set at Percy’s last night. A little gem of a venue with corrugated iron walls and roof providing great acoustics for the seismic music the band create. Forget Marvels Fantastic Four, these are the real …

On a frosty winter’s day in Manchester, three bands from three different continents Europe, North America and Australia descended upon the O2 Ritz for a sell-out show. First up at 6:20 pm, and a little too early for many revellers, came ‘all girl garage group’ The Franklys, although they’re based …

When one thinks of ‘PlanetMosh’, Reading Festival is not always the pinnacle event that may spring to mind – but surprisingly, Reading and Leeds have diversified more and more into our alternative subculture, making the idea of spending August bank holiday weekend in a field surrounded by citizens of the …

Death Resonance from Soilwork is a collection of tracks that probably should not work but does in a kind of strange way.  Two new offerings, Helsinki and Death Resonance, along with 13 rare, previously unreleased and remixed tracks gives us an opportunity to hear how the Soilwork sound has progressed over the years. Normally you may wonder as …

For Glaswegian doom mongers Headless Kross, their annual trips to the island of Ireland have become something of a pilgrimage. This evening their latest visit is well-rewarded, as, despite the gig’s early hour, Voodoo’s intimate upstairs club is rammed almost to capacity with those who enjoy their rock at the …

The first leg of the ‘Rabies Is Rising’ tour, featuring Northern Ireland’s Rabid Bitch Of The North and Sunderland classic metallers Risen Prophecy, had battered its way through Scotland and the north of England at the beginning of the month. Now, as July prepares to fade into oblivion, the English …

The second day of Steelhouse dawned with an incessant mizzle in the air.  Not the sort of torrential downpour which had turned the mountain top site into a quagmire last year, but a constant enough drizzle to make itself known it was there, and at times annoying in its persistence. …

The weather can invariably play an important role in the enjoyment of a festival – just look at the experiences of many at this year’s Drownload!  The first day of last year’s Steelhouse had been preceded by one of torrential rain, meaning that the mountain top site was already a …

It’s not every day that you see history made, but tonight it happened.  While it may not have been a record-breaking number of appearances at the venue, The Dead Daisies bassist Marco Mendoza became the first artist to take to this hallowed stage on four separate occasions with four different …

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 …

Time is relative.  For some, it passes slowly and as inexorably as the tides lap against a shore.  For others, it speeds past like a bullet from a gun, bearing down on its inevitable end.  For Northern Ireland’s hardest working hard rockers, The Answer, the past decade has been something …

It must be admitted that the focus of attention on the beer bus en route from Belfast to the depths of the Antrim hills was not on the music which awaited its passengers at the other end, but rather on the small matter of the outcome of a certain football …

The island of Ireland holds a special place in the collective hearts of the members of Corrosion Of Conformity.  Although the classic line up of Pepper Keenan, Woody Weatherman, Mike Dean and Reed Mullin had got their act back together a few months previously, and played their first live show …