Graceful Degradation

A large part of Sunday was recovery time for me.  I emerged briefly late morning to get a large coffee from Starbucks and have a wander round the 'Metal Market' then retreated to the apartment for lunch, and most importantly more sleep.

So, late start meant that my first act of the day was the ever impressive Kobra and the Lotus.  This was their third year at Hard Rock Hell, although I only saw them for the first time last year.  With a general dearth of women on stage (aside from the ones playing with fire), it was a real pleasure to see and hear Kobra Paige.  She really is phenomenal, with a powerful voice for metal that could give Bruce Dickinson a run for his money.  And the rest of the band are none too shabby either.  The guitars are spectacularly good. 

Next up were Red White and Blues, formed from the ashes of Skin (Myke Gray) and Jagged Edge (Gray and Matti Alfonzetti).  They are heavier and dirtier than Skin but retain the feel of celebration so it was a really fun time and great for the HRH Christmas Party.  Blues-edged hard rock of quality, it was an excellent set.

A search for food meant I missed most of The Union, although what I did hear sounded fantastic, and certainly the audience reaction was extremely positive.  Then it was time for Dr Feelgood, still going strong and giving a brilliant performance.  Their music is just so familiar, and yet so fresh in live performance.  The blues number If My Baby Quits Me, classic Milk and Alcohol, Back in the Night, the ever popular Who Do You Love? among others, all rounded off with a stirring rendition of Down at the Doctors, complete with whole-hearted audience participation.

The changeover after Dr Feelgood took a turn for the surreal when Johnny Davis, Hard Rock Hell organiser, came on stage to thank everyone for coming to the Christmas party.  He then insisted that everyone in the venue sit down - mainly on the floor, but those in VIP seating had it a bit better - just so he could say "Congregation rise" and get everyone to sing All Things Bright and Beautiful.  Short-lived singalong, but bonkers.

And then Fozzy exploded on to the stage.  It was utterly brilliant, a no-holds barred, high octane demonstration of the glory that is metal.  Frontman Chris Jericho alarmed the stage crew slightly by climbing one of the speakers several times in the set, but apart from a minor wobble it held firm.  Fozzy certainly whipped up the crowd into something of a frenzy.  They went down a storm and were clearly one of the highlights of the day.

For my money, Soil were a mistake.  Given what had gone before, it lacked the right kind of sparkle for the party.  For me anyway, although from where I was standing, the audience reaction seemed that little bit muted.  I'm not dissing their performance at all, Soil were on fine form.  But right at that moment it wasn't quite what I was after.

Buckcherry.  What can I say?  I loved this performance.  Having only seen them in person once before, in a small club that held probably no more than 300 at capacity, it was great seeing them on a bigger stage and holding a large crowd in the palm of their hand.  Josh Todd seduced this audience, very sensual and very sexy in his crowd interactions, and this is a man who clearly doesn't like wearing clothes for long.  Coming on buttoned up to the neck in black, by the third track (Broken Glass if I remember rightly) the shirt had gone and those fabulous tattoos were revealed in all their glory.  Thank goodness he has the body for it!  They belted out the likes of Next 2 U, Sorry, Everything, and of course the hugely popular Crazy Bitch.  After their single song encore they departed, with the crowd still baying for more. 

So that's it.  Hard Rock Hell draws to a close for another year, and hundreds of very weary but very happy rockers and metalheads will be wending their way home and wishing they didn't have to go to work tomorrow.  Thanks to Johnny, Fleur and the team for once more putting on an amazing weekend.

I probably should have had a longer sleep yesterday morning, but had decided to go and check out Rocky Shades' band Wildside Riot who were on stage one at midday.  It was alright, some decent rock but not inspiring and fairly instantly forgettable.  To be honest I would probably have been better off getting my head down for an extra hour and starting out with Little Caesar, who I haven't seen but am told are good.  Instead, I had to give them and Electric Boys a miss because I just wasn't functioning properly - back to the apartment for lunch and 45 minutes sleep which made me feel that bit better.

I was, however, in position down front for Bonafide and their HRH return.  They were pretty damn good, which woke me up better than mainlining coffee.  Bonafide's track Fill Your Head With Rock was named by Classic Rock magazine as one of the best songs of 2011, with very good reason - it was awesome to hear it live.  They were also joined on stage by a few leather-bikini clad girls playing with fire for a couple of songs.  Not sure they added much to the set personally, but I'm probably not the target audience for that.  Fast-paced, guitar heavy rock, and a bucket load of enthusiasm, Bonafide are a stonkingly good live band.

And then there were The Quireboys.  Ah, Spike, we do love you!  This is the one band I have seen much more frequently than any other and I always, always have a fantastic time.  Spike is the consummate frontman, always happy to share his enjoyment with the audience, and so when he appears on stage and announces "We are The Quireboys, and this is rock and roll" you know it's going to be a blast.  There were plenty of the expected classics - Whipping Boy, Roses and Rings, Tramps and Thieves, There She Goes Again, sweet Mary Ann, Hey You (massive sing-a-long), and of course 7 O'Clock, with a final encore of Sex Party.  But there was also the newer Mona Lisa Smiled, and a brand new track, the upbeat, good time rocker Too Much of a Good Thing.  The guys are going to be in the studio in January and a new album will be coming out sometime next year.  I'm already looking forward to it.

I had to take a quick break between sets, so was pleased to regain my front row position for Jettblack.  They're big, bold, and brash, with the volume turned up to 11.  Very flamboyant bass player, Tom Wright was throwing shapes all over the stage.  Singer and guitarist Jon Dow was more static but concentrating on getting some fantastic sounds out of that guitar, although I was mildly amused by the presence of a box on stage for him to stand on for solos.  There was a change in line up for this performance, with Will Stapleton tied up elsewhere.  At the last minute (about two weeks' notice to learn the set), Liam LTNT stepped into the breach and did a damn fine job.  They held a guitar duel between Jon and Liam which showed off just how well both guys can play.  The fire girls appeared again, I ended up with ears ringing, and I absolutely loved it.

My afternoon stint on the front row ended with The Dogs D'Amour.  Having stepped in at the last minute for HRHV, Tyla and the boys were a welcome return this year.  Opening with Last Bandit, it was a great run through of some of the very many high calibre songs of a long career.  How Come It Never Rains, I Don't Want You To Go (love, love LOVE that song), Wait Until I'm Dead, Heroine and of course culminating with Errol Flynn, it was a showcase and wonderful to see.  I think Tyla was having a few problems with his Gretsch at one stage, but it was dealt with, and they sounded great.  I admit I came late to The Dogs D'Amour, so seeing them at Hard Rock Hell two years on the trot has been a blast.

At this point I took another break and went in search of food.  As an aside, the Mash and Barrel on site is not what I had been anticipating.  Okay, so it probably wasn't ever going to be much more than a hot buffet style thing, but the chips were just nasty.  I had a kind of veggie meatball thing with them which was dry, but the other options didn't look that much more appealing.  For £7, it was not really good enough.  Would have been better off sticking with Burger King or the on-site chip shop.

Anyway, having missed Primal Fear I made it back to stage one for Testament.  At which point I discovered just how tired I was.  Not having been over at stage two at all, which was playing host to a NWOBHM, Doom N Metal line up, Testament were the heaviest band I had seen all day and will probably be the heaviest band I see all weekend.  They arrived on stage in a cloud of dry ice, so much so that for the first song the band members were barely visible except as shadowy figures, which was a very dramatic and atmospheric touch.  Testament were phenomenal, it was a building-shaking, towering performance of metal.  And I fell asleep.  Yep.  Not for long, mind, but it happened.  I nearly gave up for the evening after that, but I'm so glad I didn't.  The audience was going mental for them, there were multiple crowd surfers being hauled out by security, and it was simply amazing.

And then there was Ugly Kid Joe.  It has been 20 years (eek!) since America's Least Wanted, 15 years since they disappeared, and now they are back.  Last minute replacements as headliners when Ace Frehley pulled out yet again, they were a band I wanted to check out but without quite knowing what to expect.  It was such a low key start.  They ambled on stage with no ceremony, said hi, and kicked off into a magnificent set.  I loved it.  They have new material which went down well, they obviously did the familiar, with Whitfield Crane insisting on all the people in the VIP getting to their feet for Cats In The Cradle and more importantly keeping them on their feet for the remainder of the set.  Ace of Spades was unexpected but genius, and rounding it all off was a crowd-led rendition of Everything About You.  It may have been 15 years since they last graced the stage and recording studio, but I for one am glad to see Ugly Kid Joe back.  Judging by the audience reaction, so are an awful lot of people.

I suffer from bright ideas at 3 in the morning.  This one was along the lines of thinking I always wake up at around 6am anyway, so I'll set an alarm for 8am in case I don't.  Goodness knows why, since I don't plan to be anywhere much before midday today.  It was a bit of a rude awakening.

So, Friday.  Having managed to call a halt to the early hours jamming session in the living room of the apartment, I instead ended up with an impromptu rehearsal going on at 9.30am.  I can't imagine any hungover neighbours would have appreciated that either.  Next door were playing music still when I crawled back at 2.30am though so fair dos.

I opted to take it gently, to start with at least, and so headed for Starbucks for 1pm for their acoustic sessions.  First up was Gypsy Lee Pistolero, accompanied by Mark Westwood who provided guitars and produced the pledge album.  It was a relaxed 20 minute session covering the likes of Rubi's Got a Gun and Bandido, finishing up with Just Another Friday Night.  Lee was being a welcoming host by passing round a half bottle of brandy, and the place was a bit of a squash.  It wasn't the most polished performance, but it was a good start to the day's music.

Popping outside with them for a smoke after their set, though, was possibly a mistake since getting back in again to hear Mike Tramp was nigh on impossible.  In fact it ended up with a line and a one in, one out policy, but we could hear a reasonable amount and he sounded great.  It was clearly thoroughly appreciated by the audience and his session over ran somewhat.  Bonafide were up next, not exactly acoustic but a taster for their main appearance on stage one today, which I will definitely be there for.

I headed into the warm at 3pm for The Burning Crows on stage 2.  This is a name I have been hearing recently but hadn't really cottoned on to them as a band so went to see what they were like.  Fantastic just about sums it up.  Bravado, good time, hard rock, not particularly edgy but well written and extremely well performed.  Lively and upbeat, it was a really entertaining set.  They're currently touring with The Quireboys in what I imagine would be a brilliant night, so if you're in or near Norwich, Bedford, Sheffield or Leicester in the middle of December do go along and check them out.  You certainly won't be disappointed.  They're also using PledgeMusic to fund the recording of their debut album.  I will more than likely be putting a few quid their way.

At this point I went in search of food and discovered that Burger King on site connects to the back of stage 1, so caught a bit of Estrella as I was eating.  They were okay, just not terribly engaging.  Sort of 80s AOR of a Journey variety I suppose.  Popped briefly back into stage 2 where Aussie band Electric Mary were having fun and engaging the crowd.  I don't think I've ever seen a bass solo live before, but it went down well and I liked them a lot.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to stay long as there then followed a bit of a search for my last minute lodgers who still had my spare key and were shortly due to be heading back.  My phone has very little signal up here but we eventually managed to find ourselves in the same place at the same time, and whilst they headed off into the sunset, I decided it was a good time to go for a tactical kip.

My evening was dedicated to stage 1.  Caught the end of Buffalo Summer, who sounded alright, as I made my way in for Dan Baird and Homemade Sin.  These guys are festival favourites now and their brand of alt-country always goes down a treat, as evidenced last year by the number of hungover people present for their absurdly early midday slot.  An appearance at 7pm was much more like it, the crowd was sizeable and having fun, and it was a really energising session.  Finishing up with a spirited rendition of Keep on Rocking in the Free World, off they went and I settled in for what I hoped was going to be a fantastic evening of southern rock, topped off with the rock god that is Sebastian Bach.

Things didn't quite go to plan.  The guy I was next to was a Blackfoot fan, who were following Homemade Sin.  He expressed disappointment that there were no members of the original line-up left but said he was really looking forward to seeing them.  By the end of the set, he was even more disappointed.  It was without doubt the most ridiculous, over-blown, self-indulgent piece of guitar-wankery I have ever had the misfortune to be bored shitless by.  And I've seen MSG.  Now, I like guitars.  On balance, I think a song is better with a guitar solo than without, and there are some guitarists I could sit and listen to for hours without one word being sung.  Not these guys.  I am reassured by my let-down companion that the albums do not feature a solo in each track which doubles the length of the song, and I even thought that some of the songs sounded pretty decent.  But the lead guitarist, who I had marked down as a monumental twat from very early on, was not merely allowed to go to excessive lengths in dragging out each and every song until there was no life left in it, he seemed to be actively encouraged to do so by his bandmates.  So when they concocted a faux encore scenario (something not done by the fucking headliner, for goodness' sake) I was gratified to hear the sound of booing from the back of the venue as the wanker in chief stayed on stage to continue genuinely solo with his psuedo-masturbatory nonsense.

What didn't help my mood was that the set apparently over-ran by 15 minutes.  To be fair, I hadn't checked whether they had come on stage to time, but at 21.05, when they should have been pissing off, they announced they had a few more tracks, at which point I was desperately hoping someone would pull the plug.  Then the crew seemed to be beset by technical problems, so the changeover time was a lot longer than the ten minutes allocated.  I was living in hope that Molly Hatchet would redeem matters but to be honest I think by then I was too pissed off to really do them justice, so when they went into the same sort of extended instrumentals as Blackfoot I wasn't thrilled.  They were better, more engaging, and I liked their sound more, but I had had enough and just wanted to see Sebastian Bach.

The delay before he appeared was even longer.  The bass player popped out as the crowd was getting restless (with the odd plastic glass being lobbed in the direction of the stage) to explain the technical issues and impress everyone with a bit of gymnastics.  It did help improve the mood of the jam-packed venue, but there was a lot of frustration.  Until Sebastian Bach appeared like a whirlwind, launched into Slave to the Grind and blew everyone away.  It wasn't the greatest performance of his I have seen, but he's outstanding anyhow.  The Skid Row classics went down a treat as you can imagine - Big Guns, 18 and Life, Youth Gone Wild, I Remember You, etc.  And the solo work was phenomenal as well, with the likes of (Love is a) Bitchslap and American Metalhead.  It was all over way too soon (actually true, since we got an hour of what had been advertised as a 90 minute set), but it was magnificent and may well be the highlight of my festival.

Well folks, it's that time of year again, so once more I have made the long trek to north Wales for the annual insanity that is Hard Rock Hell.  This time we have a new location, which made the journey longer but infinitely more spectacular.  We're now at Hafan y Môr, occupying a Haven park where I was relieved to discover I actually had been allocated an apartment rather than a caravan.  I'm sure they're lovely and the pictures make them look fairly decent, but it's a bit to close to camping for my taste and I'm certainly not one for tents.

So, following a four hour drive in the cold sunshine through the mountains (slightly spoiled by the ridiculous number of roadworks along the way) I arrived, settled in, and promptly picked up a couple of waifs and strays.  It seems that this year the bands are not on the same site, having been provided with accommodation a good 20 minutes up the road.  As a result, I'm playing host to a couple of musicians for two nights.  Thank goodness it's a two bedroom apartment.

A combination of my arrival time, the need to settle in a rest for a bit, plus the guys heading up to the other site for their rider meant that I only made it down to the Gunslingers' Ball in time to catch the last two songs by Toadstool.  They sounds reasonable enough and made for a promising beginning to a weekend of music.  Followed up by Sons of Icarus, a youthful, hard rocking four-piece who will be releasing their debut EP on 19th December, and Persian Risk, Welsh NWOBHM veterans, although none of the original line up are now involved with the band.  Carl Sentence, who to be fair has been vocalist for most of the band's career, had recruited ex-Deep Purple member Don Airey on keyboards and former Thunder bassist Chris Childs for the album released earlier in the year, so is clearly concerned to have quality in the line up.  It just wasn't quite doing it for me, but that is probably down to being knackered from the drive.  They sounded pretty good, it just didn't set me on fire.

Then, following a 50 minute break, Tigertailz hit the stage.  It has been all change in the Tigertailz camp this year following the departure of first Sarah Firebrand (who I thought was terrific when I saw them at HRH two years ago) in January, followed by singer Kim Hooker in March.  A change in frontman is always the hardest thing for a band to deal with - even more so than the lead guitarist.  Joining Jay Pepper and Ace Finchum are Jason Sims on bass, an additional guitarist in the form of Rob Wylde, and the new frontman Jules Millis, who is also vocalist for White Widdow.  I'm not sure what to make of it, to be honest.  The sound quality was pretty dodgy which didn't help matters.  They are revisiting some of the original material from Young and Crazy and of course there was the guaranteed crowd pleasers of Call of the Wild, Sick Sex, and Love Bomb Baby, but I couldn't help thinking there was something not right.  It's always great to see Tigertailz, and I'm glad that they're continuing down the slightly heavier line they have always had even though they have been pigeon-holed as glam/sleaze, but it might just take me a bit of time to get used to the new voice.

Top act of the night, though, goes to TNT.  They were tight, together, and having a great time, and it was clear to see the crowd was swept along with them.  I was seriously flagging by this point (before midnight too, I must be getting old) but I stayed to listen to them giving it their all and was very glad I did so.  Which just left the issue of persuading two fairly plastered musicians that a jamming session in the living room was not a great idea at 1am.

More Italian rock courtesy of Perris Records.  This time it is the follow up by Bad Memories, following on from their 2011 debut demo Never Too Hard. 

Their style is defined as hard rock, but it strikes me as being pretty much clear cut AOR, maybe with a hint of melodic metal.  The opening track is an Intro comprising synths - keyboards and strings in the main - which then leads into track two Tears Of Anger and brings in the guitars, drums and vocals.  They've got some good guitar licks in there, the solos are polished and adventurous, and they go for a big sound which works really well here.

I can't say that I'm much of an AOR fan though.  It's okay as background listening but doesn't really do an awful lot for me.  So from my point of view the likes of Never Too Hard are a bit bland, albeit well crafted.  It just doesn't spark for me, which is more about my own tastes than about Bad Memories to be fair.  Although I do like Enrico Dal Canto's guitars, his fingers fly over the frets for his solo. 

In technical terms, they have a good line in vocal harmonies, and singer Francesco Cavalieri has a decent voice.  Their use of keyboards/piano is well judged, Federico Meranda providing a bit of added depth to the ballad Memories with his piano rhythms.  It's a balance though, sometimes the synths make things sound a bit 80s and dated.  Then there are deeper tracks like Crossroads with its piano-focused opening in contrast with the heavier guitar and drum beats from Angelo Carmignani.  This is one of the highlights of the album, a more complex composition making interesting and contrasting use of the different instruments, almost in the manner of a showcase.  Andrea Rivello's bass even takes centre stage at one point.  Shadow In This Life is a pretty decent tune as well, fresh and bowling along at a decent lick.  Brief guitar duet thrown into the solo for good measure, and a rousing, pounding drum finale.

I think, if you're an AOR fan, then Bad Memories are certainly worth checking out.  It's a decent album and there's a lot to like.