Last Gig/Next Gig Thread

[Methuen]

Last - Beyond the Black in Manchester. Support band were some goth-emo types with a lot of image, but the music was rubbish. The bass player was a dead ringer for Chelsea Wolfe though, which was disconcerting. Beyond the Black were very good - most of the band at some point worked the crowd, there was a drum solo, an attempt at German humour, played all of the nice cheesy sing-along numbers, and the crowed was probably only 30% creepy weirdos coming to stare at the singer and not move a muscle all night.

Next - Delain in the new year, unless something else comes up !

[i0th]

Last: Black Ice in Ashington a few weeks ago

Next: Twister, Wildthörn & Nephilim in Middlesbrough on Friday, mainly going for Wildthörn but will check the other two out too.

So it turns out Twister had pulled out a while ago so Wildthörn were headlining, result!

Next: Tim Minchin in Gateshead.

[bloodofthekings]

Last gig - Dragonforce & Lovebites at Leeds Uni. Gloriously over-the-top cheesy power metal from both bands which was a welcome and much-needed change after all the misery and screaming I watched at Damnation on Saturday.

Next gig - Hard Rock Hell in Great Yarmouth this weekend.

[someone else]

Couple of last minute decsisions:

Buckcherry - Buckley - decent turn out for once in the venue. The band had their moments, but the decent tunes on their first album were ignored in favour of galumphing nu-metal styled dross. Much better were openers The Treatment - no idea if they're still a hard-rock Monkees type act, but they had good tunes regardless.

Marillion - Manchester - out with a 6 piece orchestra, it worked well, with the additional musos adding to the tunes instead of being in the background or mimicking riffs and synth parts. Steve Hogarth is still an odd performer, but carries a lot of the 2.5hr show while the rest of band play in the background.

[Black Wizard]

Last - Beyond the Black in Manchester....the crowed was probably only 30% creepy weirdos coming to stare at the singer and not move a muscle all night.

To be fair, she is lovely. The crowds for bands like Beyond the Black do confuse me a bit. They're super Poppy, so I'd expect them to have quite a young fanbase but it turns out that most of their fans are balding middle aged men.

[eyesore]

but it turns out that most of their fans are balding middle aged men.

that's the least confusing thing about their fanbase.

[bloodofthekings]

Last gig - Hard Rock Hell at Vauxhall Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth (no comment on the on-site accommodation as we stayed off-site at a local BnB)

Dear oh dear. I know the change of venue was forced on them without a large amount of notice but fuck me what an absolute shit-show this turned out to be. First off, the sound was fine and of the bands we saw ('saw' being a rather loose term but more on that in a mo) I really enjoyed Those Damn Crows, Diamond Head and Doro, all of whom were great. Praying Mantis were ok but nothing special, Michael Monroe put in a good performance but I was never a big Hanoi Rocks fan so his long set left me a bit bored about half-way through and Zodiac Mindwarp were fucking awful.

But - the bigger issue is the new venue. The main room is a fraction of the size of the old one in Wales with a rather low ceiling, which meant the stage couldn't be raised any further which left a lot of folk struggling to see anything. But the main problem was the VIP & Royalty areas essentially being several rows of seating directly in front of the stage, thus creating a 'golden circle' effect which left everyone else trapped behind a second barrier, unable to get anywhere near the stage.

The problem is that part of what VIP & Royalty pay for is a separate seated section from where they can still see the stage which in Wales is what they got. The issue in this new venue is that there wasn't enough room to accommodate that so they put them directly in front of the stage, thus creating this second barrier which all other customers were effectively stuck behind. Absolutely woeful planning and very ill thought-out as all non-VIP/Royalty customers were pissed off and tbh, plenty of the VIP & Royalty lot were too as all the oldies that are used to being able to see from their seats suddenly couldn't because plenty of those still stood up any way.

When you add in nearly every band we watched also mentioning that they didn't like that setup either it basically ended up being an absolute cock up that pleased nobody.

Another knock-on effect of this which I noticed is that a lot of the standard customers were in a heightened state of annoyance at not being able to see the stage - this led to the more twattish element of the crowd taking this out on people like me because I happen to be taller than average (6"5) - on 3 separate occasions over 2 days (and given that we only watched 6 bands that's a high ratio), people were pestering me to move and trying to make me feel bad for 'blocking their view' (one of these occasions turned into outright abuse).
Now, I should clarify that on each of these occasions, I didn't surge forward right before the band came on - every single time I was either stood in the same spot for a long time (over an hour) or I was returning from the bar/toilet back to where I was originally stood (next to my wife I might add) but to a few particular cunts this obviously made no difference. I have no problem standing towards the back if I'm late in to a gig so as to not to move forward and block the view of folk that have been in the room for a while but if I've been stood in a particular spot for a long time, don't fucking come tap me on the shoulder and try and pressure me to move just because you couldn't be arsed getting in the room early enough - people who do that really piss me off.

All in all, we will definitely not be going back to any of the HRH events at this venue.

Next gig - Ghost @ Leeds Arena.

[Jay1993]

Last gig - Hard Rock Hell at Vauxhall Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth (no comment on the on-site accommodation as we stayed off-site at a local BnB)

Dear oh dear. I know the change of venue was forced on them without a large amount of notice but fuck me what an absolute shit-show this turned out to be. First off, the sound was fine and of the bands we saw ('saw' being a rather loose term but more on that in a mo) I really enjoyed Those Damn Crows, Diamond Head and Doro, all of whom were great. Praying Mantis were ok but nothing special, Michael Monroe put in a good performance but I was never a big Hanoi Rocks fan so his long set left me a bit bored about half-way through and Zodiac Mindwarp were fucking awful.

But - the bigger issue is the new venue. The main room is a fraction of the size of the old one in Wales with a rather low ceiling, which meant the stage couldn't be raised any further which left a lot of folk struggling to see anything. But the main problem was the VIP & Royalty areas essentially being several rows of seating directly in front of the stage, thus creating a 'golden circle' effect which left everyone else trapped behind a second barrier, unable to get anywhere near the stage.

The problem is that part of what VIP & Royalty pay for is a separate seated section from where they can still see the stage which in Wales is what they got. The issue in this new venue is that there wasn't enough room to accommodate that so they put them directly in front of the stage, thus creating this second barrier which all other customers were effectively stuck behind. Absolutely woeful planning and very ill thought-out as all non-VIP/Royalty customers were pissed off and tbh, plenty of the VIP & Royalty lot were too as all the oldies that are used to being able to see from their seats suddenly couldn't because plenty of those still stood up any way.

When you add in nearly every band we watched also mentioning that they didn't like that setup either it basically ended up being an absolute cock up that pleased nobody.

Another knock-on effect of this which I noticed is that a lot of the standard customers were in a heightened state of annoyance at not being able to see the stage - this led to the more twattish element of the crowd taking this out on people like me because I happen to be taller than average (6"5) - on 3 separate occasions over 2 days (and given that we only watched 6 bands that's a high ratio), people were pestering me to move and trying to make me feel bad for 'blocking their view' (one of these occasions turned into outright abuse).
Now, I should clarify that on each of these occasions, I didn't surge forward right before the band came on - every single time I was either stood in the same spot for a long time (over an hour) or I was returning from the bar/toilet back to where I was originally stood (next to my wife I might add) but to a few particular cunts this obviously made no difference. I have no problem standing towards the back if I'm late in to a gig so as to not to move forward and block the view of folk that have been in the room for a while but if I've been stood in a particular spot for a long time, don't fucking come tap me on the shoulder and try and pressure me to move just because you couldn't be arsed getting in the room early enough - people who do that really piss me off.

All in all, we will definitely not be going back to any of the HRH events at this venue.

Next gig - Ghost @ Leeds Arena.

That's a shame to hear. I've got tickets for HRH sleaze and Hammerfest there next March as it's right on my doorstep. Hopefully, they'll sort these issues out before then as it will feel weird moshing to Napalm Death far away from the stage!

[bloodofthekings]

Last gig - Hard Rock Hell at Vauxhall Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth (no comment on the on-site accommodation as we stayed off-site at a local BnB)

Dear oh dear. I know the change of venue was forced on them without a large amount of notice but fuck me what an absolute shit-show this turned out to be. First off, the sound was fine and of the bands we saw ('saw' being a rather loose term but more on that in a mo) I really enjoyed Those Damn Crows, Diamond Head and Doro, all of whom were great. Praying Mantis were ok but nothing special, Michael Monroe put in a good performance but I was never a big Hanoi Rocks fan so his long set left me a bit bored about half-way through and Zodiac Mindwarp were fucking awful.

But - the bigger issue is the new venue. The main room is a fraction of the size of the old one in Wales with a rather low ceiling, which meant the stage couldn't be raised any further which left a lot of folk struggling to see anything. But the main problem was the VIP & Royalty areas essentially being several rows of seating directly in front of the stage, thus creating a 'golden circle' effect which left everyone else trapped behind a second barrier, unable to get anywhere near the stage.

The problem is that part of what VIP & Royalty pay for is a separate seated section from where they can still see the stage which in Wales is what they got. The issue in this new venue is that there wasn't enough room to accommodate that so they put them directly in front of the stage, thus creating this second barrier which all other customers were effectively stuck behind. Absolutely woeful planning and very ill thought-out as all non-VIP/Royalty customers were pissed off and tbh, plenty of the VIP & Royalty lot were too as all the oldies that are used to being able to see from their seats suddenly couldn't because plenty of those still stood up any way.

When you add in nearly every band we watched also mentioning that they didn't like that setup either it basically ended up being an absolute cock up that pleased nobody.

Another knock-on effect of this which I noticed is that a lot of the standard customers were in a heightened state of annoyance at not being able to see the stage - this led to the more twattish element of the crowd taking this out on people like me because I happen to be taller than average (6"5) - on 3 separate occasions over 2 days (and given that we only watched 6 bands that's a high ratio), people were pestering me to move and trying to make me feel bad for 'blocking their view' (one of these occasions turned into outright abuse).
Now, I should clarify that on each of these occasions, I didn't surge forward right before the band came on - every single time I was either stood in the same spot for a long time (over an hour) or I was returning from the bar/toilet back to where I was originally stood (next to my wife I might add) but to a few particular cunts this obviously made no difference. I have no problem standing towards the back if I'm late in to a gig so as to not to move forward and block the view of folk that have been in the room for a while but if I've been stood in a particular spot for a long time, don't fucking come tap me on the shoulder and try and pressure me to move just because you couldn't be arsed getting in the room early enough - people who do that really piss me off.

All in all, we will definitely not be going back to any of the HRH events at this venue.

Next gig - Ghost @ Leeds Arena.

That's a shame to hear. I've got tickets for HRH sleaze and Hammerfest there next March as it's right on my doorstep. Hopefully, they'll sort these issues out before then as it will feel weird moshing to Napalm Death far away from the stage!

Do you mean HRH AOR? Hammerfest is there but HRH Sleaze is in Sheffield

[Jay1993]

Last gig - Hard Rock Hell at Vauxhall Holiday Park in Great Yarmouth (no comment on the on-site accommodation as we stayed off-site at a local BnB)

Dear oh dear. I know the change of venue was forced on them without a large amount of notice but fuck me what an absolute shit-show this turned out to be. First off, the sound was fine and of the bands we saw ('saw' being a rather loose term but more on that in a mo) I really enjoyed Those Damn Crows, Diamond Head and Doro, all of whom were great. Praying Mantis were ok but nothing special, Michael Monroe put in a good performance but I was never a big Hanoi Rocks fan so his long set left me a bit bored about half-way through and Zodiac Mindwarp were fucking awful.

But - the bigger issue is the new venue. The main room is a fraction of the size of the old one in Wales with a rather low ceiling, which meant the stage couldn't be raised any further which left a lot of folk struggling to see anything. But the main problem was the VIP & Royalty areas essentially being several rows of seating directly in front of the stage, thus creating a 'golden circle' effect which left everyone else trapped behind a second barrier, unable to get anywhere near the stage.

The problem is that part of what VIP & Royalty pay for is a separate seated section from where they can still see the stage which in Wales is what they got. The issue in this new venue is that there wasn't enough room to accommodate that so they put them directly in front of the stage, thus creating this second barrier which all other customers were effectively stuck behind. Absolutely woeful planning and very ill thought-out as all non-VIP/Royalty customers were pissed off and tbh, plenty of the VIP & Royalty lot were too as all the oldies that are used to being able to see from their seats suddenly couldn't because plenty of those still stood up any way.

When you add in nearly every band we watched also mentioning that they didn't like that setup either it basically ended up being an absolute cock up that pleased nobody.

Another knock-on effect of this which I noticed is that a lot of the standard customers were in a heightened state of annoyance at not being able to see the stage - this led to the more twattish element of the crowd taking this out on people like me because I happen to be taller than average (6"5) - on 3 separate occasions over 2 days (and given that we only watched 6 bands that's a high ratio), people were pestering me to move and trying to make me feel bad for 'blocking their view' (one of these occasions turned into outright abuse).
Now, I should clarify that on each of these occasions, I didn't surge forward right before the band came on - every single time I was either stood in the same spot for a long time (over an hour) or I was returning from the bar/toilet back to where I was originally stood (next to my wife I might add) but to a few particular cunts this obviously made no difference. I have no problem standing towards the back if I'm late in to a gig so as to not to move forward and block the view of folk that have been in the room for a while but if I've been stood in a particular spot for a long time, don't fucking come tap me on the shoulder and try and pressure me to move just because you couldn't be arsed getting in the room early enough - people who do that really piss me off.

All in all, we will definitely not be going back to any of the HRH events at this venue.

Next gig - Ghost @ Leeds Arena.

That's a shame to hear. I've got tickets for HRH sleaze and Hammerfest there next March as it's right on my doorstep. Hopefully, they'll sort these issues out before then as it will feel weird moshing to Napalm Death far away from the stage!

Do you mean HRH AOR? Hammerfest is there but HRH Sleaze is in Sheffield

Yeah HRH AOR, my bad! Seen a lot of comments on their Facebook page from people complaining about the set up so hopefully they'll take these on board and make some changes for next year...

[bloodofthekings]

That's a shame to hear. I've got tickets for HRH sleaze and Hammerfest there next March as it's right on my doorstep. Hopefully, they'll sort these issues out before then as it will feel weird moshing to Napalm Death far away from the stage!

Do you mean HRH AOR? Hammerfest is there but HRH Sleaze is in Sheffield

Yeah HRH AOR, my bad! Seen a lot of comments on their Facebook page from people complaining about the set up so hopefully they'll take these on board and make some changes for next year...

I'd be surprised if they did - they've proven time and again that they only care about their VIP & Royalty customers and couldn't give a toss about the rest.

[gazsetsfire]

Last - Lacuna Coil and Eluveitie on Saturday night.

Packed out forum, nice to see Eluveitie get pretty much an hour despite having to step into the support role to U.K. shows. Thought lacuna coil were great too, been a while since saw them last, loved Delirium and new album is decent too. Hopefully Dimmu at same venue in January isn’t quite as full.

Next - the double header of sacred reich at the underworld with Amon Amarth in Birmingham the next night.

[someone else]

Last - Iggy Pop last night. Recent album was a more toned down, jazz influenced affair and the gig reflected that, being in posh confined of the Barbican as part of their Jazzfest. Starting at 8 with no support, most of the first set was from the new album, with a great band a few nods to the older material, and a rip through Stooges Death Trip, complete with trumpet solo! Then after 40mins, he said good night and lead the band off, which was leading to a gig breaking ZZ Tops 'most paid for shortest set' record - fortunately the second set was longer, but relied on obscure album cuts rather than Lust For Life etc, with Nightclubbing being the closest to a 'hit' due to Trainspotting. Iggy remains one of the most likeable frontmen, and this was a toned down gig - he wandered into the crowd but nowhere near as feral as before - his limp is much more noticeable, and his shirt stayed on for the duration!

Next: SOPHIE fest at the weekend

[Ghost]

Last: Ghost - Wembley. All three bands were great and I'd like to see Tribulation and All Them Witches at their own gigs. Only slight complaints are All Them Witches might get to play more songs if they didn't add 3 minute jam at the end of each song
Also ghost have too many instrumental and jokey guitar bits for my liking. Just play your songs. I think the previous incantation of the singer was a lot funnier.

Next: Sacred Reich in London on Wednesday. Woohoo.

[gavdann]

Last: Ghost - Wembley. All three bands were great and I'd like to see Tribulation and All Them Witches at their own gigs. Only slight complaints are All Them Witches might get to play more songs if they didn't add 3 minute jam at the end of each song
Also ghost have too many instrumental and jokey guitar bits for my liking. Just play your songs. I think the previous incantation of the singer was a lot funnier.

Next: Sacred Reich in London on Wednesday. Woohoo.

I agree about there being too much chat, not so much about the instrumentals. Miasma is arguably the best track on Prequelle. It was good but nowhere near as good as RAH as they cut so many of the good, old tunes. It was great to hear Zombie Queen though.

Tribulation and ATW were good but I actually thought their freakouts were the best bits. All their songs started and ended great but the vocal parts were a bit meh.

Next.. Desaster & Archgoat