Friday, August 08, 2008

“everything louder than everything else”

As Mike (Bubbleman) thoughtfully points out, this blog has been woefully neglected of late. Yes, the shoes are long past being mourned, a combination of new work responsibilities and some tough decisions leading to me pulling out of doing Savageman have conspired to leave a very uncreative or talkative frame of mind.

However, a couple of weeks ago I happened to visit DC 101’s website and simply because it was there entered one of their competitions. To be honest I’d forgotten about it, but on Tuesday my phone rang, and I’d won two tickets for the show. Game on !.

I guess I have spoiled myself in that I have been fortunate to see an awful lot of bands, so if I hadn’t won the tickets I probably wouldn’t have been too interested in this show, which given how great it was would have been a shame.

Judas Priest headlining, with Heaven and Hell, Motorhead and Testament. I had to go and look up Heaven and Hell, ahh, it’s the Ronnie James Dio era Black Sabbath, cool.

We missed Testament, sometimes it is inconvenient having a day job. But on arriving Motorhead had just started their set, audible rather clearly out in the parking lot. After going in and walking up the bank that shields the neighbours from some of the volume, cresting the hill gave the impact of just how loud they were. My tickets were way down near the front, a quick mental jog calculating just how loud they were going to be when we got to the seats, ooooh.

I was right, they were incredibly loud, Lemmy from Motorhead once said that if they moved in next to you, your lawn would die. I think there’s going to be a lot of dead grass around Nissan Pavilion this morning. I’ve always had a soft spot for Lemmy and the boys, fashion or changes in music never really interested him, he just carries on making Motorhead albums, one after another in his own inimitable and uncompromising style. On being asked how he felt as somehow over the years being accepted into a member of the rock establishment he replied “Yes it is IS amusing - and kind of disgusting! The only reason I was "accepted" is that I wouldn't die!”

A great set though, all the expected old chestnuts, and Mickey Dee and Phil Campbell on top form. (and definitely significantly louder than both other bands, who weren’t exactly slouches in the volume department).

Heaven and Hell I had mixed feelings about, though I liked the music way back in the day and still have Neon Nights/Die Young on my workout iPod mix, I’ve just come to think of Dio as being a little bit of a joke, an individual who takes himself and his position in rock history a little too seriously.

Their stage set when revealed looked a little hokey, but what the hell it was daylight, once it darkened up and the lights became effective it should look pretty cool. But they were great, starting with Mob Rules this was a band who had come to play hard, not just show up and roll through some old hits. I also take back what I said about Dio, he truly does have one of the most incredible and powerful voices in rock music. What’s not to like about a pair of 12’ gargoyles that shoot smoke and fire ?

Judas Priest, what on earth can you say about them, an immense back catalog, uncompromising, they know what they do and they do it very, very well. Just how many leather coats can Rob Halford change into, and does his voice never stop ?

A brutal set, great lighting, great stage show and another band that didn’t just phone it in.

Of course by this point in the evening, the antics of some of those who came to party hard and overdid it a little had become quite amusing as well, the trio that kept invading the front area, headbanging their little cotton socks off. Then getting tossed back whence they came by security, finally came unglued, passing out and security tossing them for good after one of their number truly tossed his cookies in a quite impressive style during a bout of over enthusiastic headbanging.

It also seems, if you’ve seen “The Decline of Western Civilization” or “Heavy Metal Parking Lot”, the uniform for metal heads has changed from the long hair and rampant mullets, its seems all self respecting metalheads have a shaved bonce and goatee these days.

But I still liked Motorhead, I should be able to hear again by the end of the weekend ! ;-)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Learning Tree has an office in the same building as DC101, I was up there for a C++ class and went ahead and stopped in and met Elliot and the gang.

I was actually thinking about the VirginFest this weekend, but events have conspired to derail my summer.

Sorry about the Savageman, I know you were looking forward to it.