Blaze Bayley - 07/06/08

Blaze Bayley was of course the frontman of legendary brit metal band Wolfsbane and also Iron Maiden (Between 1995-1999) and He is back with his new solo album: "The Man That Would Not Die"


Blaze's popularity seems to have waned over the last few years as there were probably only around 150-175 people in attendance tonight,


However for those who came they were treated to a high octane metal fest! I thought he was brilliant!


Along with songs from his solo albums he played "Futureal", "Virus" and "Lord Of The Flies" from his time in Iron Maiden, they were great versions and his voice really is quite distinctive although his moves are slowly matching those of fellow brummie Ozzy! All in all, a brilliant gig!


That's it for now! The next gig is Queensryche next week, which also has had an unfortunate lack of sales! See you then!

Joe Satriani & Paul Gilbert - 15/05/08

Joe Satriani at Manchester Apollo, with Paul Gilbert, so let's start with Mr. Gilberto. He started off in Mr. Big in the late 1980's and his gimmick was of course playing guitars with Makita cordless drills!


Gilberto played mainly songs from his new CD: "Silence Followed By a Deafening Roar" which other than his Mr. Big albums are the only one i've got, but his playing was magnificent very, very, close to good ol' Joe himself!


Gilberto finished with Mr. Big's "The Electric Drill Song" which ended up being the only song with singing, and also featured the drill moment! There was also a bit of a Jimmy Page style violin bowing! Overall great stuff!


The crowd pretty much loved Gilberto and even gave him a standing ovation, pretty good for a support act! So Joe had a lot to live up to!


Joe had as usual, Jeff Campitelli on drums, Galen Henson on rhythm guitar and the return of the BASSmaster: Stu Hamm! So probably his best ever backing band!


Joe, not surprisingly played 7 out of the 10 songs on his new album: "Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musteron of Rock", which is probably his finest album in years!


Joe also played many of his claasic older songs, finishing off with the brilliant sing along to the guitar part: "Crowd chant" The audience went suitably ape-shit! Anyone who thinks Satriani tracks are just widdly diddly guitar shit with no tunes, were proven wrong by such catchy numbers as "Always You, Always Me", "Summer Song" and "Flying In a Blue Dream".


A special mention goes out to Stu Hamm for possibly the best bass guitaring heard since Geddy Lee and Rush! At first I though every one was booing him, but it turns out they were "Stu"ing him - Awesome!


Blaze Bayley is next at Rock Of Ages! on the 7th June. Also need a ticket for Paul Gilbert at Rios in November!

Robert Plant/Alison Krauss - 07/05/08

Had terrible cold, didn't feel well so didn't end up going :-( Mam and Dad enjoyed the show though! Apparently it was really good! Hopefully will be back in action for guitar fret wankery from Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert next week!

3 Inches Of Blood - 02/05/08

Yes, Mr. Somebodyelse, Rios is now indeed in Leeds and not Bradford! I also agree that Facebook sucks serious ass! I'm very close to deleting my account as it's the most annoying f*%ked-up shit on t'interweb! Anyway let's talk about Vancouver, Canada's very own, 3 Inches Of Blood - You would think that they were a Scandinavian battle metal if you didn't know any better and they frakkin' rock big time!


Last week we only saw the last two songs from the 3"ers, this week we got to see the whole show, but still with crazy shit going on! 3" had a small but devoted crowd gathered in Leeds on Friday for an excellent set of rowdy battle metal anthems, Cam Pipes was in good form with his "Evil" Rob Halford inpressions, awesome!


THe crowd were a set of complete nutters with one of the craziest circle pits i've seen in a long while, this was also the cause of Friday's comedy!


Honk decided that at 50 years old, you are still young enough to have a mosh in the circle pit, this was of course after several pints too many... After running out of the pit looking somewhat green, he proceeded to spew all over my arm and then the floor, before being booted out by the bouncers! At this point Brian, came over wondering what had happened to Honk, and slipped on his back straight into the pool of vom! It was classic!


So this was two strange gigs in a row for Honk Stewart, pissing off half way through last weeks, and then getting chucked out of this one! God knows what will happen next....

The next gig is a complete change of pace - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at the Manchester Apollo on Wednesday, see you after then!

Defenders Of The Faith - 25/04/08

Comedy day out this! After an afternoon of swilling pints in various Manchester hostelries, we got into the Manchester Academy at about 6:50, things went wrong instantly, JB's current favourites 3 Inches Of Blood, had come on immensely early, and we only saw the last two songs, which were very good! This pissed JB off immediately!

The next band up was Devildriver, who were alright, but not brilliant! Honk seemed to like them, but after an incident with a plastic sword, he decided enough was enough and lobbed his pint and pissed off! We were now one down....


The next band up was Opeth which were the band I was most looking forward to, and they were, well disappointing to say the least, they didn't get good until half way through the second to last song. They sounded constantly out of tune and frontman Mikael Akerfeldt appeared to have had several pints too many before the show! At this point JB decided that they were shit and that he was off outside for a fag. Unfortunately they would let him back in...

The final band was Arch Enemy, and there was just myself and Junior left to watch them. After a disappointing night, Arch Enemy saved the day! They fu@kin' ruled, they were tight fast and aggressive! Front woman, Angela Gossow had incredible stage presence and insanely evil voice, think the demon voice from The Exorcist!!! Brilliant!

The next gig is this coming Friday at Leeds Rios! 3 Inches Of Blood's own headlining show. More after.

Nightwish - 04/04/08

The first proper gig of the year! Also the first blog entry of 2008, and its been a while coming hasn't it! So onto Nightwish at the Manchester Apollo. I was very much looking forward to this one as it was the first gig of theirs that i had seen with the new singer - Anette Olzon, who has a totally different presence and voice than their old singer Tarja Turunen.


So not suprisingly given the differing range of Anette's voice, the band stuck mainly to songs from last years "Dark Passion Play" album, with a smattering of old tunes thrown in for good measure.


Unfortunately the soundman should be shot, as the sound was terrible to begin with and not very loud at all throughout the whole show! However the bands performance was very good! Luckily Nightwish are the main headliners at this years 3 day Bloodstock Open Air Metal Festival, where I can re-evalue them. It was still a lot of fun though!


Next up in the world of metal is the "Metal Hammer - Defenders Of The Faith Tour" that will thunder through Manchester Academy next Friday (25/04/08) which will be reported on soon after! See you then!

Top 3 Gigs Of The Year - 2007

Not really much competition here to be honest :-)

Number: 3



Rush - Manchester - 14/10/07

Number: 2



Rush - Sheffield - 06/10/07

and finally (and not suprisingly!):

Number: 1



Rush - Birmingham - 12/10/07

Surprised! Thought not, nuff said! Let's see what nest year has to offer! See you soon, hope you have a happy new year!!

Albums Of The Year - 2007

Well, its been a while, since i've bothered to write anything here! Mainly due to the overdose of Rush! But hey i am back with the Top 5 albums of the year! The reason it is not 10 is that this year there was an above average number of good albums so to find 5 outstanding was easier than trying to figure out ten!

So here We go!

Number: 5



Jordan Rudess - The Road Home

An album featuring covers of 70's Progressive Rock classics from bands such as Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, King Crimson and Yes! Also featuring one brand new Jordan track!

For those who don't know, Jordan Rudess is the keyboard player for Dream Theater and this is his 5th solo album! Cracking!

Number: 4



Marillion - Somewhere Else

Marillion's 14th album, is the best since 1997's "This Strange Engine". they have shifted their sound, so this album is probably more like Radiohead mixed with Coldplay, rather than the proggy style of old! A great listen though!

Number: 3



Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet

Fantastic Nu-Prog album! Another album that narrowly missed the five, was "Blackfield II" by Blackfield which is a Porcupine Tree spin-off band.

Again mostly mellow sounds on this! The third song "Anesthetise" features Rush's Alex Lifeson on lead guitar!

Number: 2



Rush - Snakes & Arrows

Wot, not number one! what's wrong with the world! Well I thought this would easily be the album of the year and it was till June, but then things changed!

"Snakes & Arrows" is Rush's best album for nigh on 18 years, certainly the best since 1989's "Presto" album. Just great proggy rock!

It won Classic Rock Magazine's album of the year! And they were also band of the year in the readers poll, too! Brilliant, nearly the very best of the year, until it was tipped by:

Number: 1



Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos

Just magnificent! This is what I said at the time of release:

"This is extremely Progtastic! What a fantastic album, I'd recommend it to any fan of Prog Rock/Metal. If you like Rush, Tool, Porcupine Tree, Yes or Pink Floyd, you'll love it! It features all your favourite prog stuff: 16 minute tracks, over the top keyboards, widdly solos everthing! One song sounds a bit too much like Muse, but its still good.. Rock on :-)"

It just is top notch in every way! The best guitar and keyboard performances of the year! Drumming just slightly less impressive than Neil Peart (Rush) at his best, but great stuff. Fabulous! It will take a lot to beat this next year. It could well be the metal release of the decade (so far!)