Concerts I've seen

This was Thunder's farewell gig before disbanding. Support band Kick were OK, but a bit bland. Thunder were on form, but then they have a reputation for always being on form. The only disappointment was that they didn't do a longer set, given that it was their last ever gig. That said, the encore was fairly long, including drummer Harry James doing a cover of Abba's "Dancing Queen". Good stuff, and they'll be missed. Hopefully, it'll only be a temporary split, and they'll return with a lucrative comeback tour in the not too distant future :-)

The adverts didn't mention a second support, so I wasn't expecting Skew Siskin at all. I hadn't anything form them since the early 1990s, and didn't even know they were still going. They put on a reasonably good show, and I was pleasantly surprised. This is the third time I've had the misfortune to see Groop Dogdrill, and if anything, they were even worse than the last two times. I'd bought the ticket for this concert before I knew that I was going to be seeing Motörhead supporting Manowar in Sweden a couple of weeks earlier. Had I known, I probably wouldn't have bothered with this one. As it turned out, I'm glad I did. Their performance in Sweden wasn't bad, but not particularly inspiring, but they really shone here.

Tonight's opening band were supposed to be Static-X, but they didn't turn up, supposedly because of a throat infection. It later turned out that they'd flown back to the USA to do a TV show instead. Coal Chamber were pretty awful. I just don't get it. If you want to listen to vocals like that, then I recommend trying out Dimmu Borgir or Dark Tranquility. At least then you get decent music to go along with it. Still, at least bassist Nadja was worth watching :-) Type O Negative were much better, fortunately avoiding some of the more tuneless aspects of their repertoire, and sticking to the more melodic stuff.

Manowar haven't played the UK on their last 3 tours, so to see them I needed to go abroad. A few friends went to Germany for the last tour, and I was being sensible and decided to stay at home. This time round, though, I decided to just go ahead and do it, particularly when the support bands were so strong. It was well worth it. The venue was an ice hockey rink with a stage at one end and some flooring covering the ice.

The only exposure I'd had to Lion's Share was from their cover of "Touch of evil" on a Judas Priest tribute album. I was reasonably impressed, and it was one of the tracks they played in a strong but not particularly memorable set. Still, it was enough to persuade me to buy their albums.

Next up came Dio. I wasn't particularly impressed the last time I'd seen him, but fortunately, tonight was much, much better. He played a selection spanning most of his recent career, but the stuff from the early Dio albums went down the best (and deservedly so, in my opinion).

Third were Motörhead, who performed pretty much how you'd expect them to! Phil Campbell's stage presence is embarassing to the point to cringeworthiness, but I was particularly impressed with Mikkey Dee's drumming. Lemmy was his usual cynical self :-) The crowd seemed mostly unfamilar with the material, apart from the obvious "Ace of spades", and to a lesser extent, "Bomber".

Finally, came Manowar. They've upgraded their equipment since the last time I saw them, with the result that the sound quality is crystal clear, by far the best I've heard at any concert. However, I felt they spent too much time boasting to the audience about how metal was never going to die, instead of just getting on and playing the stuff! What they did play was good, but lacking that spark that separates a good gig from a truly outstanding one. The exception to this was "Gates of Valhalla". There was something magical about several thousand Swedish metal fans screaming "Valhalla, the Gods await me" at the top of their voices. It was one of those occasions that makes the hair on the back of your neck rise. Simply awesome, and probably the best single song I've ever seen performed live.

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Utterly amazing. I have no memory of the support band, Deadline. All I remember from this show was the Scorps. They were touring on the back of a new album, "Eye II Eye". I'd tried to get hold of the album before the show, but none of the UK resellers had it in stock. In hindsight, this was a good thing, as the songs went down pretty well live, but were comparitively weak on CD. But tonight saw a near flawless showing of the classic Scorps tracks, and some newer material mixed in, too.

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Formerly Baby Chaos. Review to follow

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Probably the best gig I've ever been to. Full review to follow

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Mötley Crüe in disguise. Review to follow

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This turned out to be an expensive night. I'd bought tickets for this evening, and had them in my jacket pocket a couple of weeks before the show. One night out, they went missing after my jacket was left in the car. Being charitable, you could claim I lost them. Or perhaps they were stolen. If so, I have a fair idea who took them. But lacking any evidence, there was nothing I could do, so I had to buy another set of tickets. On the night of the show itself, the friend who was driving us up to London had a massive row with her boyfriend, and we left late. Thus it was that we missed Torranaga, and arrived part way through Sabbat's set. They weren't really my sort of thing. Too much noise, and not enough melody. Then came the dry ice, and Orson Welles's booming voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America, all hail... Manowar". What a show! Every song you could want, each one played at unimaginable volume. My ears were ringing for a week afterwards. This was Manowar at the height of their popularity in the UK, and it was truly an amazing experience. After the show, we waited around in a torrential downpour to meet the band, who signed my jacket. This was the first really outstanding live show I'd been to, and decades later still ranks as one of my top 5 shows of all time.

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I don't remember much about Thrashing Doves. This was the first gig in a new venue, so they were the first band to ever play on that stage, but they didn't make a big impression.

My sister had managed to get front row seats for this show. I was about halfway back with my ex and her new boyfriend. I'd gone down to say hello to my sister when the show started, and I found myself in the front row anyway! There didn't seem to be much point in giving up such a choice spot, so I stayed there for the duration of the show. As you might expect from a band that's had as much stage experience as Duran Duran, they were very polished. They played all of the classics that you'd expect.

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Originally scheduled for 24th September. Review to follow

I'd bought my ticket from the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street. They didn't have them in stock, so they posted the ticket to me later. I was more than a little disappointed to find they'd allocated me a seat in the last but one row in the circle. I was miles from the stage, and couldn't really see the performance very well at all. It wasn't a bad show, per se, and she played most of the songs I was wanting to hear. But the poor view and muddy mix spoiled what might otherwise have been a good evening.

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My first ever gig. The support were unmemorable, but I was only really interested in Ultravox anyway. True, the U-Vox album wasn't quite up to the high standards of their classic output, but they put on a decent live show, and overall, it wasn't a bad introduction to live music.