Metal Performance Of The Year!

The band who I thought kicked the most ass (arse?) and gave the best overall live performance this year were:



They could not win the gig of the year as it wasn't their own gig, but they were my favourite 45 (ish!) minutes of the year...!

Lamb Of God's set list (for those in the know!) was:

Ruin / Laid To Rest / Walk With Me In Hell / Pathetic / Now You’ve Got Something To Die For / Blacken The Cursed Sun / Redneck / Black Label

"F*/k yeah!!!"

Top Five Gigs Of The Year!

As it's now 3 days to New Year, and seeing as this is a gig blog, how's about the top five gigs of the year:

To read about the gigs you will have to go to the blog entry in question, this is just a simple list:
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1:



2:



3:


4:



5:



Here's to next year and many more gigs!

Gigs already confirmed for next year:

Journey,
Mastodon,
Deftones,
Dolly Parton! (oh yes!)

Top Ten Albums Of The Year 2006

10: IN FLAMES - COME CLARITY

In Flames are a melodic death metal band from Sweden, who were on the "Unholy Alliance Tour" This album rocks!







9: DEFTONES - SATURDAY NIGHT WRIST

One of only two bands on this list I haven't seen live, however that will change in April when they are on at the refec!







8: LACUNA COIL - KARMACODE

Ah, Cristina, yes, you are an Italian metal goddess, and that's why your new album, makes my Top Ten....







7: DRAGONFORCE - INHUMAN RAMPAGE

Their gig at the Refec might not have been that good, but this album sure is! Especially if you like guitar solos and lots, and lots of them! It doesn't hurt that they play at 2 million mph either!





6: MUSE - BLACK HOLES AND REVELATIONS

"Starlight" is the pop song of the year, no question! Pretty much all the other songs rock too!







5: SLAYER - CHRIST ILLUSION

Slayer are Slayer, you either like them or you don't, but this new album, the first with the "Proper" line-up since 1990, kicks Satan's ass!!! (I suppose that should be ARSE! I am not an American!)





4: IRON MAIDEN - A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Best album from "Maiden" since the eighties! Maybe best since "Piece Of Mind" in 1983! Live show was amazing as well, a true 10/10 album!





3: LAMB OF GOD - SACRAMENT

Before LOG came on at the "Unholy Alliance Tour" a roadie tested the drumkit and the MEN nearly collapsed, it was that loud! When the Band came on they ripped everyone a new arsehole, and this album does the same, magnificent!




2: MASTODON - BLOOD MOUNTAIN

You have already read in depth about this album before, and I love "Bladecatcher" by the way, Mr Me? A Bee?!!







1: TOOL - 10,000 DAYS

This is an album I bought from t'Asda 'cause I liked the sleeve! not a really good reason I know, but it is truly an amazing piece of work, its challenging to get into, but the musical rewards are many. It gets 11/10 and Tool were also by a long margin the best gig i've been to this year! (even the Yellow Men couldn't ruin this!)

So thats 2006 all done and dusted, what's gonna be good next year? My money is on the new Rush album!!!

Iron Maiden - 18/12/06

Iron Maiden's new album "A Matter Of Life And Death" features quite highly in my Top 10 albums of the year! (See my next post!) So it was quite a good idea that they had to play the entire album all the way through this tour, which is what they did at Sheffield the other night.


As you can see, we had seats that were unfortunately quite a long way away from the stage. So therefore I pinched a few photos from the t'interweb as usual!


Here is Bruce Dickinson dwarfed by a rather large picture of Eddie dressed as a WWII soldier! This is during the very excellent song "These Colours Don't Run"


This picture is of Dave Murray (or is it Jannick Gers) and Steve "Arry" Harris (Mr. Clickety clackety bass himself!)


The stage design was rather like a bombed out village such like as seen in "Saving Private Ryan" or some other such film. Basically the new album is pretty much all about war and is strangely topical for Iron Maiden..


And, Oh yes, Eddie did appear as usual during "Iron Maiden" in a big tank type thing, excellent! Anyway due to the "Maiden" playing all their new album, they only had chance to play 5 old songs, so some people were quite pissed off that they did not get to hear "The Trooper", "The Number Of The Beast" or "Run To The Hills". However as this was my 10th (Yep thats right 10th!) Iron Maiden gig it was quite nice to hear some different songs and not the above over and over again! So to sum it up: Iron Maiden, a pretty convincing 9/10 as usual!

Oh, and finally, let's not forget Trivium, the dullest support band I've seen in a long time! I Nearly went to sleep, as they were peddling their "We sound like a shitty version of Metallica" songs, The guy even nicked James Hetfield's speaking style, very, very lame indeed! Another Band that were good for just one album... Pants!

Other Things That Week! (The Last Week In November!)

The last week in November was a very busy week! Then after all that excitement, I got a cold and felt shit all last week, i'm still a bit sniffley now :-(

Anyway the other things were:

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Little Britain on the 30th November at the Grand Theatre in Leeds, - got dragged on stage by David Walliams! I have proof, my friend Neil (who's a Policeman!) saw me!! Good show, pretty much the same as the live DVD tho!


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Rock Of Ages/Fenton visit on the 1st of December, met up with Emma and Dan, plus Mr. Me? A Bee? + Friend and Peter H. in the Fenton. Then Myself + Emma and Dan went to ROA in the Union and met DJ Dave and jived to a bit of Rock for a while! I then got a Taxi home with an exceedingly nice Taxi driver who only charged me a Tenner! (It's usually loads more!)

Unfortunately, Mr. Steven couldn't make it, so the ashtray contents eating event had to be postponed!


I've got no pictures from this ROA, so am re-using an old one! Yes I know it's got Rob (AKA Seaweed!) on it, but thats to add an Aussie theme, as a tip of the hat to Emma's Aussie Blog! This reasoning is of course utter bollocks, but what the hell!

DragonForce - 01/12/06

DragonForce at the Refec at Leeds Uni, the sound was particularly crap, which is not unusual for the refec.. I wished i'd gone and seen Ryan's band Chickenhawk at the Fenton, instead.

Here are some pictures of DragonForce in action tho:

Asia - 28/11/06

Ah, the reformed Asia or let's stalk Geoffrey Downes part 2!

Asia reformed with their "original line-up" in February, this tale has being told in a previous blog! and the gig finally came around..


Asia decided to play every single song from their first album a couple from Alpha and a few old numbers from the members previous bands:


So Steve Howe did the old "Yes" chestnut - "Roundabout", John Wetton did King Crimson's "Court Of The Crimson King", Carl Palmer did ELP's version of Copeland's "Fanfare For The Common Man" and Geoff did of course "Video Killed The Radio Star"...


Now on the previous Asia tour, (In Bradford!) I had, had a few jars and took the piss out of Mr. Downes (as he signed my CD), slating his "Buggles" masterpiece (and No:1 hit!) the aformentioned "Video Killed The Radio Star"......


Anyway, Asia recorded the live show and had it available for sale on CD straight after the gig. You had to queue up for the CD and then queue up to get it signed, When I got to Mr. Downes, he quickly signed it and then ran off out of the fire escape... leaving everyone else in the queue to get just three signatures! Did he recognise me from Bradford and run off! I am now awaiting the "Restraining Order"!
The gig was very good however!! and I haven't been arrested yet!


Here is the aformentioned signed CD of the nights show! Note I have all 4 signatures! After I scared Geoff off, everyone else in the queue after me only got 3!

Tool & Mastodon - 24/11/06

Wow! This has been a long time coming! I have 2 other posts to come as well! It's been a while, but i've been busy and then ill. Anyway I still have a rotten cold, and i've lost one draft, so here goes....

Mastodon: As seen in previous posts, a band that was difficult to get into, although i decided on genius eventually. What would they be like live? Well, not bad, but had rubbish sound... a fate that quite a few opening acts have to deal with..


However, as I was familiar with their output by now, I thought they were quite good, although I would very much like to see their own show! Oh, and for the benefit of Mr. "Me ? A Bee ?", they did not play "Bladecatcher".


Anyway on to Tool: Firstly Tool do not like smoking or people taking photos of their show, even with camera phones.. (Garry was told off for smoking, I had a torch, repeatedly shone in my face until I gave up trying to take some piccies!) So here are some pics that i half-inched from the murky depths of somewhere on the net...


Tool were, how can we say this, f*/king awesome! Easily the best band seen all year! Everything about the show was excellent, the lights, the lazers, the video screens, the fact that Maynard is one strange individual. I summed it up after the show with the comment "Floyd Metal".


Tool's set list was as expected. Most of the excellent new CD "10,000 Days" plus the cream of their old stuff.


Maynard stood right at the back of the stage all throughout the set, never ever wandering to the front... Quite often he would sing with his back to the audience. A very strange indivdual.


At one point he said "have you heard about boot-laces", whiched seemed very random at the time, but apparently one of Danny Carey's boots flew off whilst he was drumming!


The sound throughout was crystal, it was like listening to their CD's at home, If only Mastodon had the same sound.


The best song? Well that was easily "10,000 Days" a ridiculously overlong and convoluted prog metal marathon - it lasts approximately 18 minutes!


Next gig was the reformed Asia, That review coming soon!