Sepultura were originally meant to come to Dundee way back in January 2007, but the gig was cancelled after the band were stranded in Spain or something; hence, there was a feeling that Sepultura kind of owed Dundee a show. And what a show they put on…

Alright, I’ll admit it, I didn’t turn up in time for the first support band. I assume there was one, but I have no idea who it was. Not a great start, sorry. I guess it’s possible that Gama Bomb were the only support, though, so I’ll just pretend that was the case; they easily did the work of two bands, anyway. The Northern Irish thrash revivalists ripped through a great set that got the crowd really fired up, even inspiring a circle-pit at one point. The crowd seemed really up for it, despite it being a rainy Monday night, and Gama Bomb played to this dynamic perfectly, getting the mob warmed up nicely for the arrival of the Brazilian legends.

Two things stand out in my memory about the arrival of Sepultura on-stage; one was the sheer ludicrous volume they created, enough to numb ear canals for several days afterwards, and the other being the fanatical reaction of the crowd. I initially stationed myself in an observational position halfway up the stairs in the middle-back area of the venue, but as the band tore into ‘Arise’ someone was literally thrown far enough from the pit to upset my pint. The entire of Fat Sam’s just erupted, as every song, old and new, was greeted with moshing the likes of which the venue has never before witnessed.

The band themselves were ludicrously tight, tearing through a set comprised fairly equally of more recent material and more ‘classic’ Sepultura tunes, fittingly enough for a 25th anniversary tour. While the ghosts of Igor and Max Cavalera may have been haunting the minds of many prior to the show, such thoughts couldn’t have been further away while the band were on stage and on top form. Hulking vocalist Derrick Green roared his way through every song as convincingly as Max ever did (sporting dreadlocks down to his arse to boot), and Jean Dolabella was an absolute dynamo behind the kit, hammering out the band’s tribal rhythms and inspiring a near-constant bounce in the crowd.

Indeed, the ferocity of the pit was such that Derrick actually appealed to the crowd to help the fallen to their feet during the intro to ‘Sepulnation‘. To be fair, impeccable moshpit etiquette was being observed at all times, but it says a lot about the mentality of the crowd that they responded to this plea by forming up for a Wall of Death. They had obviously taken Derrick’s words on board, later in the song converging as one to hoist the largest man in the pit off his feet, sending bouncers scuttling for cover as the behemoth crowdsurfer sailed over the barrier.

After the incredible intensity of the opening songs, the band seemed to relax into the gig, clearly enjoying the fanatical reactions of the crowd, especially when they began to crack into the “classic Sepultura” back-catalogue with songs from “Beneath the Remains”, “Chaos A.D.” and “Arise”. Frankly, every single note received a great response regardless of historical gravitas, even when the band spontaneously broke into a short reggae jam “for the serious guys out there, you know?”. Burly shirtless men who had moments earlier been engaged in what appeared to be mortal combat were unashamed to get down and, for want of a better word, boogie.

After an hour and a bit of furious ear-numbing moshpit-inducing heaviness - not to mention another, rather larger, Wall of Death - it all came to a climax with the crowd bouncing as one to an incredible rendition of ‘Roots Bloody Roots’. Not to sound conceited, but I’ve been to rather a lot of gigs, and seen a lot of things…and honestly that, that was something a bit special. If there were doubts lingering about the validity of a Cavalera-free Sepultura, there was no finer way to expunge them than this gig. A stone-cold classic.

Article by Phil Sim

Folkestone seems an unlikely place for the first official date of Ozzy Osbourne’s farewell tour. The seaside town seemed unaware of the huge event about to take place. Even inside the venue there are no Ozzy posters amongst those advertising provincial versions of the Queen musical and after checking the tickets against the sign outside I still feel compelled to ask one of the ladies at the box office if we are definitely in the right place. The venue looks like a beach pavilion from the outside – the hall itself is appropriately subterranean, set in the side of a cliff. Excitement builds as the day goes on – ageing rockers in grisly metal t-shirts drink lager in front of blinding white seafront hotels and some bemused locals had noticed the arrival of a huge truck the night before – a truck emblazoned with a bat and the words ‘Fly By Nite’.

Inside, Alexander Milas of Metal Hammer kicks off the evening with a DJ set. The music he plays is primarily what you would expect to hear in any popular metal club on a Saturday night – Metallica, Machine Head, Megadeath, Sepultura – but no one came for anyone but Ozzy so it isn’t important if the support is somewhat uninspiring.
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The sacred grounds of Donington Park are opened once more for Download Festival 2010. The sun is shining, the beer is flowing and Nottingham mentalists Lawnmower Deth (5/5) are getting the party started with some comical thrash silliness. A crowd-surfing race to the back of the marquee and back is truly a wonderful sight to behold, as is a conga line instead of a circle pit and a giant rabbit throwing out carrots. Of course, these antics are interspersed with anti-seminal tracks including ‘Watch Out Grandma, Here Comes A Lawnmower’ and ‘Satan’s Trampoline’. This is the sort of thing you want at a festival; a band who are enjoying themselves as much as the punters. Meanwhile, metalcore brutes Killswitch Engage (4/5) tear shit up on the main stage, vocalist Howard Jones sounding as well and as on-form as he did before his recent absence. Their dedication of ‘Holy Diver’ to the late great Ronnie James Dio is one of those classic, spine-tingling Donington moments. Coheed And Cambria’s (3/5) set is less memorable, but Sideshow Bob… erm, Claudio Sanchez guitar-smashing antics make it worth watching alone. Them Crooked Vultures (1/5) prove to be as dull live as they are on record, falling into pretentious jam sessions and lazy songs that don’t live up to their subheadliner position. Perhaps it’s just a case of bad booking, as they were only ever intended to be a side project, but the biggest WOW-factor about them remains that they feature a man who played on ‘Stairway To Heaven’. And even that doesn’t help much. Bullet For My Valentine (2/5) aren’t much better; their crowd is more loyal and appreciative, but these sub-par metal songs aren’t wholly memorable. But do you know what is memorable? AC/DC (5/5) at Donington. The show features the same setlist and spectacle as their last tour, but that one is now seeing these antics – a giant inflatable Rosie, a Rock ‘n’ Roll Train smashing through the stage and the unstoppable Angus Young soloing tirelessly from a raised platform – at the definitive location, at the Mecca of Metal, makes it a breath-taking, truly inspiring performance.
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It’s about bloody time Kiss came back for a full UK tour. Last time they played Scotland, according to Paul Stanley, they performed at the Glasgow Apollo – a venue that closed 25 years ago. A lot of time has passed, and the painted rock legends have a lot of missed time to make up for.

First, however, hotly-tipped new rockers Taking Dawn largely fail to prove why they’re hotly-tipped. Sounding like Black Tide with a bit more hair on their balls, they power through a short set of heavy metal cannon fodder. Shapes are all present and correct; hair is swinging, guitars are being thrown around and textbook crowd-riling banter is spat by singer Chris Babbit, but there’s little more to it.
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October of last year saw the tragic, untimely demise of Evile bassist Mike Alexander. For such a young band said to be ‘carrying [thrash metal]’s revival on their shoulders’, it really was a shock to the community, and for a short time their future as a group was in doubt. Thankfully, fortune smiled upon them with the arrival of new bassist Joel Graham, and a UK tour to further promote new full-length ‘Infected Nations’ (and its Maidenesque cover art) and keep the metal flag flying high.

Israel’s The Fading do their best to work up tonight’s (notably young) crowd, with some textbook stage banter and melodeath frettery. The venue is more empty than half-full, and polite applause and a small, brief moshpit is just about the only response from the crowd, apart from the usual support band-piss-taking jeers from the lads at the bar. Compared to them, Calfornia’s Warbringer are the bomb. Some tasty Exodus-y noise is battered out by the fivesome, who have the long-haired, beer-drinking, pot-smoking, cop-bothering thrash image down to a tee; the kind of American headbangers you see in the likes of Wayne’s World or Bill & Ted. Vocalist John Kevill has something of an early Mike Patton about him, throwing shapes and pulling mad faces as ‘Living In A Whirlwind’ becomes a reality; the first of many circle pits has begun.
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The poster on the wall inside the Glasgow Auditorium on this rainy November evening reads ‘They keep killing him… and he keeps coming back!’. Which is very true; Alice Cooper has been performing for over four decades now (!), being - amongst other gruesome acts - hung, electrocuted, maimed, decapitated and strangled in his legendary live show, but is still going strongly, shocking and grossing-out adults and bores everywhere he goes. Even ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett called him ‘obscene’. What’s that? Oh, yeah, that is the same Mr. Blunkett who got caught shagging his married secretary and breaking ministerial laws for personal gain. But I digress.

First up are Man Raze, who can count Def Leppard’s Phil Collen and The Sex Pistols’ Paul Cook in their ranks. They’ve also got Simon Laffy from Girl on bass (I’d never heard of him either). They fare well tonight on their first Scottish show, with a nice hard rock sound and covers of The Stooges’ ‘Search And Destroy’ and The Jam’s ‘That’s Enterainment’. One very satisfied punter in the front row gives them a standing ovation after every song. Not the greatest of bands, but an enjoyable little act and a nice wee side project for the members nonetheless.
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I was flicking through some god-awful Metro-style paper on the Chicago L-Train when the night’s entertainment listings caught my eye. Bob Dylan and his band were playing some fancy downtown club, and perennial stoner-rock campaigners Fu Manchu were playing the ‘Double Door’ out in North Chi’. Needless to say, the choice was obvious.

Admittedly, Fu Manchu could be accused of getting increasingly commercial, over-produced and frankly uninspired in their studio output in recent years - in fact they (arguably) haven’t produced a truly solid album since 2001’s ‘California Crossing - but it has never been in doubt that they are an absolutely cracking live band. I get the feeling that with the generation of bands emerging today, going out on tour just isn’t as important as it should be; everyone just gets their single out on iTunes and headlines a minor stage at Download three weeks later. After all, who really wants to live out of a van, surviving on cheap beer and gas station food? Well, Fu Manchu, that’s who. They’re the ultimate road warriors, having spent their entire lives in an epic circuit of the USA (and when we occasionally get lucky, Europe), only taking the odd month off to churn out a new album to tour for. The latest excuse is their 10th album, ‘Signs of Infinite Power’, out earlier this month, and the Fu chose to hit Chicago not only on a saturday night, but on Halloween.
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Steel Panther have at last been unleashed upon a largely unsuspecting world. For years now, they’ve been a house band, putting on weekly shows in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, showcasing their parody of the 80s glam movement through ridiculously suggestive lyrics and over-the-top rock music. For the first time, they’ve broken free of the LA/Vegas circuit and gone out on tour; and yet this, the second date of their first appearance on British soil, sold out weeks before the show. That tells you a lot about Steel Panther straight off the bat.

That said, the evening didn’t get off on the greatest foot, at least in my book; this was not the fault of Steel Panther, however, but of the way the gig itself was organised. The doors opened at seven (people were queuing at six!) and Panther took to the stage at around nine. You’d think that would be a good slot to fill with support bands, indeed that’s the conventional way to do things. For some reason, at this gig we were instead treated to a guy standing on the stage frowning at a laptop, playing predictable songs (Sweet Child O’ Mine, Highway to Hell, Crazy Train, ad nauseum) on what sounded like Windows Media Player. I hope to pretty much each and every god that he wasn’t getting paid for that. The end result was in essence like being in a very busy pub, with no seats, populated by cross-dressers, for two hours.
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Overcoming an initially dodgy reputation among festival-goers, Hellfest in Clisson, France has become the prime contender to usurp Wacken Open Air as Europe’s premier metal weekender. Germany’s much beloved metal Mecca might have the prestigious reputation but a glance at Hellfest’s incredibly varied line-up tells you who has the bands this year.

Hellfest has wisely imitated Wacken’s dual-main stage approach to ensure maximum musical saturation but also boasts logistical advantages over WOA with a huge supermarket only 10 minutes’ walk away, allowing festival-goers to stock up on fresh supplies and well-priced booze every day. This is just as well as on the other hand, the Clisson-fest’s on-site food prices are rather high and the less said about that awful, Download-blighting beer token system, the better. Oh, security could probably do with tightening in future as our party have fully pitched up before tickets are checked and wristbands issued.

These are of course, only minor quibbles when there’s such an incredible array of bands to enjoy over three days; so many in fact that watching half-sets is often begrudgingly necessary in order for this writer to sample as many bands as possible.
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The weather’s unpredictable, there’s no foreign exchange rate to distract from the high beer prices and wasps buzz around on their endless campaign of annoyance; it’s good to see nothing’s changed in my two year absence from a UK open air festival. In its five years of existence, Bloodstock Open Air has cemented its reputation as the UK’s equivalent to the mighty Wacken festival and given that the BOA site is roughly only 1/10 the size of said German ‘fest, there’s plenty of potential for growth. Such reduced surroundings are no disadvantage though: frequent spottings of participating musicians and regular re-encounters with newly made friends (you know: those cool people you drank with last night and never expected to see again all weekend) bring a greater feeling of intimacy and community. This reviewer certainly never anticipated such a sense of unity at a UK ‘fest (marred by one idiotic event – more on that later).
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