Ever Been Surprised by a Support Band?

Just a random thought I had on the way to work this morning whilst listening to ‘In Dreams’ by After the Burial, but have you ever come across a band at a gig that you’ve never heard anything by that have truly blown you away?

Generally, I like to know something by the bands I’m going to see before I can enjoy watching them.  Sometimes, and in hindsight stupidly, I’ve neglected to watch a support band at a gig because I didn’t know them (and probably because Jim said they were amazing and we don’t always agree) and have sat at the bar and missed bands the calibre of Protest the Hero and Whitechapel.  Silly me!

Anywhoo, I have found myself at a few gigs over the years where I’ve been utterly stunned into laughter by an unexpected gem of a band.  I can think of three occurrences that spring to mind.  One I’ve already mentioned on here before, so I’ll keep that one brief…

First up, was waaaaaaay back in the day. Anyone familiar with Canadian all-girl group ‘Kittie’?  Well, I went to watch them.  Didn’t have a ticket and it was sold out so I took a chance and headed to Manchester to see if I could get one off a tout.  Robbing bastard touts wanted £50 for a ticket which I was not willing to pay for a £12 gig!  So, I thought I’d try one more avenue.

I headed to the back of the venue to see if I could get my stuff signed, and lo and behold, Morgan Lander of Kittie was walking to the bus.  Jackpot.  She kindly signed all my bits n bobs, CD’s, singles et al and said “enjoy the show” to which I replied “Not coming. Couldn’t get a ticket!”.  In a move of pure genius, she got me added to the guest list!  Oh yeah!  Bingo!  I’m in.

Pretty sure Sugarcoma were supporting on that show too, but don’t quote me on that.  However, the band that made this night so damn good were about to grace the stage.  I’d heard of them, but nothing by them. They were an unknown entity on this night out, so coke in hand (I was driving) I settled in to watch the show. …and the band was ‘Shadows Fall’.

Shadows Fall

They hit the stage hard with a barrage of fast, technical wizardry and thrash-esque riffage that put me in mind of Slayer and early Metallica in parts.  They were amazing.  Thinking back, they were probably the first band of this new breed of metalcore type band that I witnessed, leading to a love of bands like Unearth, Parkway Drive, Lamb of God, As I Lay Dying and more…

I pretty much stood there laughing to myself (I was on my own) as they blasted through some amazing sounding songs with great music and vocals. Topped off by the 6-foot dreadlock windmilling by frontman Brian Fair, Shadows Fall made the ever growing list of bands I needed to hear more of!  Needless to say I nipped to the merch stall after the show and got a copy of ‘Fear Will Drag You Down’ and chatted with the band (except Fair – his autograph still eludes my CD cover, even though I have met him twice since!)

The second band that did this (and the reason for me writing this) were ‘After the Burial’.  I was off to see Caliban with Jim and Ross and supporting were After the Burial, a band I’d never heard of.  Pretty sure I MySpace checked ‘em and thought they sounded ok, but couldn’t remember the song I heard or what they were like.

So we got to the gig and watched the opening act, then on they came.  The stage was dark and then they kicked in.  Silhouettes of two guitarists with their back to the crowd and their guitars behind their heads opened the show and blazed into perfect technical shreddery of their opening song, which I think was ‘Berzerker’!  They nailed some awesome guitar playing – sweeps, the works – from the back of their heads!!!

A brilliant show of skills and some fantastic tunes came from the stage. The only off-putting thing was the god awful illuminous colours of their guitars!! Really enjoyed their set and can’t wait to see them again very soon supporting Suicide Silence along with All Shall Perish.  A beast of a line-up, I’m sure you’ll agree!

Now, here’s where I’ve done that thing where I don’t pay attention to a band only to find they’re actually fantastic and I really like them.  Also on that Caliban line-up are the third band in this story.  A band who were so heavy and bass-pulse destructive that they left me in fits of laughter at the ‘Never Say Die’ Tour in 2010.  Emmure.

Yes, I didn’t pay attention to Emmure, and if I did, they sounded nothing like they did that day at Never Say Die.  I did a full blog about that gig if you wanna know exactly what I thought, but needless to say, I thought they were pretty damn special.  I laughed through their set.  They were immense and aided a thoroughly good night out and have since added a host of great tunes to my iPod!

Have a think.  Pretty sure we all come across a band we don’t know who just stick in the mind as a “fucking hell, these are ace!” band.

The Mosh Lives Tour 2011: Emmure & Co

Probably should have gotten to this sooner while it was fresh in my mind, but I had to go to work and it numbed my mind from all things!  Anyway, I’ve just remembered I needed to do it so here goes…..

T’other week, me n the usual posse headed on over to sunny Manchester to witness a rather heavy event.  It was the ‘Mosh Lives’ tour, headlined by the behemoths that are Emmure.  Also in tow were Winds of Plague, War From a Harlots Mouth, the classy I Wrestled A Bear Once and someone new to my radar, Visions.

The Mosh Lives Tour 2011 Poster

So it was an early dart from work to get back in time, swing by and pick up Ben, home, change and wait for Ross to pick us up and head over to Manchester where we were meeting Snail (Jim) who was driving up formCoventryfor the show.  Few beers in the car and we were there.

Cheekily, we have phoned ahead to Snail to ask him if he had car park money, as we’d forgotten.  He did.  So we made him walk to the car park barrier and put it in and press the button so we didn’t have to get outta the car!  It was raining after all!

We were a tad early, and when we get to a gig a bit early and can’t be arsed queuing, there is only one solution: Head to The Oxford for a swift pre-gig bevvy!  We got there, ordered beers and cokes, navigated our way through the labyrinth of staircases to the bogs and back, then settled down for a nice quite pint.

Noooooooooo, that wasn’t gonna happen!  You know when you get those drunk old gits who come over completely out of their face and badger you with conversations that you can’t understand??  Yeah, we had one of those!  But this guy was unreal!  “Students, ya know nothing…. Tell me something???  You don’t know anything… rarararah…”  STUDENTS???? Excuse Me?? Feckin students?  Sorry mate, you’re harassing a table of ‘kids’ aged 30-33!!  He didn’t stop for the entire time we were there and even threatened us with death!  “rarararah…. I’ll kill the lot of ya!”  Not even joking.  He was weird.

So, pints downed in less that hospitable circumstances and we headed over to theClubAcademy, where the drinks are cheaper and the queue was now shorter.

First up were Visions.  Can’t remember much about them. They were ok, but nothing really stood out as being amazing and they were more background music for drinking to!  We did our usual scout of the merch stalls while they were on!  Ben got harassed by some crazed fan to buy a War From A Harlots Mouth CD just ’cause the guy selling it was in the band!!  Try as he might, he didn’t make any commission.  No sale.

I Wrestled A Bear Once were up next!  These guys and gal are crazy!  The music is just purely insane.  They started proceedings with ‘Ulrich Firelord-Breaker of Mountains’ which, if you ain’t heard it, has the heaviest Inspector Gadget theme tune beatdown at the end!  Pure genius! They did some new songs too which were equally as crazy and mine and Snails favourite tune ‘Ain’t No Family’.  Ya can’t beat an insane metal song with the most random horse neighing in the middle!

War From A Harlots Mouth aren’t a band I’ve gotten into much, but they were pretty good!  Heavy, technical tunes and epic growls mixed in with some fast paced riffery.  I only know one song (which is the1:22blast of ‘If You Want To Blame Us For Something Wrong, Please Abuse This Song’ with the machine gun beatdown from ‘Transmetropolitan’), which fortunately, they played!

Winds of Plague were the main reason I was there. I’d not long got their new album ‘Against the World’ and it had been on constant rotation all that week!  Not just to prep for the gig, but because it’s just really really good!  There are some fantastic tunes on there, the main one I got hooked on was ‘Refined in the Fire’ which I was hoping they’d play at the gig, Built for War (featuring Jamie form Hatebreed) is ace and to top it off, a guest appearance from the living legend that is ‘The Ultimate Warrior’.  Yes, THE Ultimate Warrior, the very same Ultimate Warrior that handed Hulk Hogan his arse at Wrestlemania XI in one of the greatest exhibitions of wrestling you will ever see!

The Ultimate Warrior - Yesterday

The Warrior on a metal album?  That can’t be a bad thing!!!!!

Anyway, Winds of Plague hit the stage and played a stormer.  I hung back for a while and took in the show!  Don’t remember their singer being such a big chap!  Built like a tank, so he is!  Anyway, a few songs in and I hear the shout of “Decimate the…..”  and before he said “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeak” I was en route to the pit for some good old fashioned moshing!  Stayed there for a bit, and they played it!  Refined in the Fire.  “I don’t fear evil, EVIL FUCKING FEARS ME!!!!”  Classic stuff.

After all that hot, sweaty pit action I was ready for another cheeky pint and a rest before Emmure bass pulsed their way through the last hour!  Our mate Dave couldn’t make it to the gig, and jealously messaged us saying “I hope they play an acoustic set”.  Even if they did, I’d imagine it’d still have been heavy to the point of stupid!

Emmure - Heavy enough to make a grown man shit!

Emmure bounded onto the smallClubAcademystage and tor through tunes from their back catalogue and new album ‘Speaker of the Dead’.  It was loud and damn heavy.  Enjoyed their set from the back, but did feel compelled to launch an assault on the pit for ‘Solar Flare Homicide’.  “I see a fire in the skyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”

The sounds wasn’t as bass pulse heavy as it was on my previous Emmure encounter, which was probably for the best given that we all nearly died from heart-shaking pulses last time, but the show was still good.  Nice to see them doing their own thing on a headlining slot, and with such a good line-up of bands in support!

All in all, a pretty good show!!

Not going to Download festival (Sigh) so next gig is Suicide Silence, After The Burial and All Shall Perish!  Follow that with Sonisphere, then Slash (YAAAAAAAAAAAAY), followed by Unearth and 36 Crazyfists a few months later, this year is shaping up to be pretty good!

New to my iPod…

Hello!

Ok, so I wrote this post a month or so ago and within minutes of me kinda finishing it I’d gotten hold of a bit more stuff to add to it. So I thought I’d re-write and see where I got with it.

Basically, I’d ordered some new CD’s.  “Whoop” I hear you say, and it is whoop!  I’d been skint so far this year and hadn’t been able to get hold of anything new, and as a collector of CD’s that disappoints me greatly.  So with my new found wealth (which didn’t last) I ordered:

• Times of Grace – The Hymn of a Broken Man
• Slash – Slash Special Edition (It had 3 extra songs so I had to!)
• Emmure – Speaker of the Dead
• Oceano – Contagion
• DevilDriver – Beast

Quite a mix there, eh?  Well since I wrote the post about these new bits n pieces I’ve gotten hold of some more stuff by Emmure, albums by Impending Doom, All Shall Perish, Baptized in Blood and my fave at the mo for sheer fun music, Royal Republic.  I’ll blast through and give you the lowdown.

How Cool?

Times of Grace was always going to be good. I love Killswitch Engage.  If you need to know how much I love KSE, then you need to track down the Couple that were standing next to me and Ben at Download in 2009, as they applauded our singing along to every Killswitch song played and apparently, we were better than Howard!  Anyways, Adam D is a legend and Jesse Leach’s vocals on KSE’s ‘Alive or Just Breathing’ are superb, so I was well up for hearing what times of Grace had to offer.  I’d already heard ‘Strength in Numbers’ and loved that and the rest of the album didn’t disappoint.  It’s loaded with melodic, catchy tunes, great Adam D guitar work and excellent vocals from both parties.  Not bad for a 2-man album.  Christ, I hate multi-talented people like Dutkiewicz.  And he looks good in a cape!!!!

Slash’s CD is just a re-release with some bonus tracks, which I wouldn’t usually buy ‘cause they piss me off. Seriously!  It used to be the case that the limited or special edition versions of a CD came out first, so the real fans and collectors got them as soon as they could.  I have many a ltd edition digipak and a few with Roadrunner Records first day stamps (Sepultura’s ‘Roots’, Machine Head’s ‘The More Things Change’, etc.).  A band released an album, the cool kids got the good stuff first and then there were normal versions for those who weren’t that bothered.  We – The Fans – buy our favourite bands albums when they come out, only for you – The Record Company Whores – to release better, more upgraded versions of said albums at a later date.  Err, fuck off!!  Now I have to buy a second copy of the album which I don’t need ’cause you’re money grabbing twats.  That’s not metal, is it??

Anyway, I digress.  I bought the Slash CD AGAIN because, as you know, I am a massive Slash fan (he says, sitting in the office at work in a GN’R t-shirt) and the CD had 3 acoustic tracks of songs I like and love on there.  Slash and Myles Kennedy performing Velvet Revolver’s ‘Fall to Pieces’ Slash and Myles’ ‘Back From Cali’ and my fave GN’R classic ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’.  “But Dan, you could have just downloaded the 3 tracks!”  Yes, I could have, but I’m a CD collector and Slash fan.  Unfortunately, this was a buyer.  Anyway, the songs are good and I love the solo album anyway, so it just made it better.  Could have saved these tracks for a limited edition version first release of the next solo album though!!!!!!!!!!!

Emmure's 'Speaker Of The Dead' - Heavy

Emmure.  Well, if you saw a previous post about me catching Emmure at the Never Say Die! Tour, you’ll know why I needed to get hold of some of their tunes at some point.  They’re just plain heavy.  And live, they’re even heavier and loaded with massive bass pulses that make your insides rattle. Speaker of the Dead was the first set of Emmure tunes I actually listened to properly, and it’s a thoroughly good album. Dirty, low-tuned riffs, nothing over complicated, just big, fat, heavy riffs and shouty vocals. Just what the doctor ordered. I’ve picked up the rest of their back catalogue since and it’s equally heavy. I still think ‘Speaker…’ is the better CD, though Ben will argue in favour of ‘Felony’. They’re all good though.

Got tickets to catch them on tour Next week at Manchester Academy and it’s going to be a bloodbath!  It’s Emmure, with Winds of Plague, I Wrestled A Bear Once, War From A Harlots Mouth and Visions on the “The Mosh Lives” Tour.  Mint.

DevilDriver’s latest album Beast is just another DevilDriver album.  I like DevilDriver, but they tent to do a few really good songs on every album and the rest just sounds the same.  They’re excellent to watch live as they have like 5 albums worth of material to pick an epic set from, but they’re not a band I can get into fully.  Don’t get me wrong, this CD isn’t crap, it’s just similar to all other DevilDriver albums to the point where nothing majorly stands out.  If you love their work, you’ll love Beast.  I only like it though.

Oceano are another great band a stumbled across a while back using the MySpace friends links.  Like Emmure, they just do big heavy riffs and deep growling vocals.  Oceano are more sludgy in their approach.  Listening to ‘Contagion’ is like listening to a giant slowly stomping the world to the point of Armageddon.  Oceano need to get back over to the UK soon, as I missed them last time due to being late out of work. 😦

Myself, Ben and Dave went to see Whitechapel recently inManchester.  It was a good show featuring Whitechapel, The Acacia Strain (who were ace) and a band I knew nothing about – Impending Doom.  These guys were epic.  Such a raw, heavy noise from a band with one guitarist.  Check ‘em out!  Again, following the sludgy heavy route but with a bit more technical stuff in the guitar work.  I’ve got hold of some of their tunes and they’re defo worth a listen.  They’ve got the sound of a band who’ve really worked hard to get where they have.

Baptized by Blood are a band I’ve been interested in hearing something by for a while.  I downloaded ‘Last Line Lady’ from Roadrunner Records website when they were giving it as a free mp3, and liked it.  Apparently, these guys are managed by Dave Mustaine of the mighty Megadeth, so they must be alright!  Album seems pretty solid.  Melodic metal riffage with some top class solos and growled vocals.  Think a more heavy Bullet For My Valentine with no singing or All That Remains type music.

Royal Republic

Ahh, and now for a band that brought me out in fits of laughter from the moment the first song kicked in.  I downloaded a copy of ‘The Royal’, again from Roadrunner and thought “this sounds like fun”, then I forgot about it.  I remembered again recently that I had it and put it on.  Had to get a copy of the album! RoyalRepublic’s ‘We Are the Royal’ is a gem of an album of you’re into a more poppy, fun rock record.  Happy go lucky riffs, a superb vocal and fun lyrics.  Definitely a summertime album.  If you want a comparison, they’re a bit like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, with some Rocket From the Crypt, Tenacious D and a touch of the B-52’s for sheer novelty value.  It’s the sort of album that you need to stick on if you want cheering up or at a party.   It’s just fun.  They’re not metal, but they are still good to listen to!

And as a final note, I’ve just got the new Winds of Plague album, which is frickin’ ace!  Prob pop on summat about that after the Emmure gig (which is tonight!!!!).

Laters.

3 Day Gigathon – Episode 2: Imperial Never Say Die Tour!

So here we are on day 2 of an epic 3 day run, and tonight is a bit of a beast of a line up. It’s 2010’s Imperial Never Say Die! Tour and there’s seven bands playing. That meant early doors. That meant I had to perform an ‘early dart’ from work. That meant I had to call in a favour from da boss. Thankfully, I was allowed to leave work an hour early AND still get an hours lunch for a Pizza Hut buffet. Get in.

So it’s ‘Never Say Die!’ tour time, featuring headliners, and a big fave of mine, Parkway Drive, with Comeback Kid, Bleeding Through, Emmure, Your Demise, War From A Harlots Mouth and We Came As Romans. Bit of a beast of a line up, innit?

Never Say Die 2010 Tour Poster

Having sacrificed the last hour of my working day to the Gods, I went home and did my last minute gig prep – getting CD covers together to get signed. There was a new line-up of attendees in the posse this evening, so myself, Ross and Ben (Who was tonight’s Des) headed off for night 2 at the Academy in Manchester.

Once again, we were later than we should have been and missed ‘We Came As Romans’. Must’ve been really early doors then. Shame, ‘cause I was looking forward to checking them out. Never mind. Ross headed to the bar.

He came back just as ‘War From A Harlots Mouth’ came on, and he was looking pretty happy with himself. Turns out it’s only £1.50 per pint until 8:30. BINGO!!!!!

Now the venue is full(ish) and the beer is cheap (and coming in thick n fast) and ‘War From A Harlots Mouth’ are on. It’s all sounding pretty clear tonight, and very loud! To be honest, this was probably the point of the evening where the sound was best. It all went downhill from here, well, except for ‘Emmure’, but we’ll get there in a bit.

‘War From A Harlots Mouth’ (or ‘View From A Harlots Window’ if you’re Ben) are pretty impressive. Loaded with heavy songs and an abundance of slick technical skills, they’re a damn fine band to watch. They only did a short set though, but lots of bands on so it was expected.

Next up were Brit hardcore mob ‘Your Demise’. I’ve not seen or heard anything by them before, so this was all new to me and I didn’t know what to expect. They were alright. Ross said he’d caught a tune on Kerrang! or Scuzz and thought it was cool, so I thought I’d give em a whirl. I can usually gauge if I’ll like a band if Ross likes it. On saying that, I wouldn’t go looking through his iPod. It can be a terrifying experience for even the most seasoned metaller! But ‘Your Demise’ blazed their way through a swift set of poppy hardcore tunes that seemed pretty catchy. Thought they weren’t bad.

Now I was cock-sure I’d seen ‘Emmure’ before. Pretty sure they played with Caliban and Architects last year, but couldn’t remember anything about the experience. Though at that gig, I was pretty taken aback by ‘After The Burial’. Now there’s an awesome band. Back to Emmure; and one of our mates who we’d bumped into was telling us that they were a tad heavy and really good, so cool, I was now looking forward to it!

Now nothing can prepare you for the sounds that Emmure were pumping from the stage that night. It was sludgy, detuned and ludicrously heavy! I’ve said before that if I find something really cool, I’ll just laugh. I spent the entire of Emmure’s set in tears. There music was immense, something I could really get into, but that wasn’t what had my laughing! It was the bass pulses. They were constant. Every 3 seconds…. BOOOOOOM!!!!!! And your heart was rattling in your chest! I’m pretty sure there should have been a disclaimer stating “Anyone with any form of heart condition should refrain from watching Emmure, through fear of death”. Pretty sure they might have bass-pulse-revived any downed victims too! I enjoyed them though and they’re defo on my ‘must get’ list. Just hope it sounds that heavy on record. As Ben said a day later – “Emmure in 3 words: WHAT. THE. FUCK.”.

Bunch of Muppets

Pretty sure at this point we were rapidly approaching the drink cut-off point of 8:30, so we thought we’d best stock up while it was cheap and headed out to the bar area. We bumped into more friends we hadn’t seen for ages who told me that Emmure sounded better outside as there were less health risks involved! Beered up and back in for Bleeding Through…

I like Bleeding Through. More so since ‘Declaration’ came out, but I like a few other tracks too and I’ve not heard their latest self-titled album yet. The problem I have with these guys (and gal) is that they never seem to play the songs I like live. Ok, they opened with ‘Love Lost In A Hail Of Gunfire’ but I absolutely love great tunes like ‘On Wings Of Lead’ but they never seem to play it. I just seem to hear the songs I don’t know that well, unless it’s from ‘Declaration’. I think I prefer that album to the others as it was the first one they did where the production on the guitars didn’t sound totally shite. Nevertheless, they’re a top live act and I should get into more of their tunes. Shame the sound was crap in the venue. All you could really here was drums and a fuzz that might’ve been the guitars, so you couldn’t really make out any tecchy guitar parts. Sound guy’s fault, not the band! But through the smog of sound, they were good! Ben’s a massive fan of Bleeding Through and he loved ‘em, but did agree the sound was cack!

No more beer from now onwards. I refuse to pay double for them ‘cause I’m skint and there’s another gig to go to tomorrow, remember?

Ben with Marta From Bleeding Through

Comeback Kid were on next. They did little to keep my attention. Spent their set chatting wit all the people we’d bumped into, while occasionally catching a few mins of the band. Not really a fan. I can find that punky hardcore style a bit repetitive and boring after a while. The shit sound probably didn’t do them any favours either! It was about now that Ben had spotted Marta from Bleeding Through over at the merch stall. So we just had to go grab a snap of him with her. He loves her, he wants to kiss her….

Now time for the main event. I pray to god the sound is better and Mr. Sound-Man has tweaked the mixing desk. You need a clear sound for Parkway Drive so you can hear all the technical genius guitar playing that these guys can do! When they kicked in… its still sounded a bit shite!

They were, as expected, ace and the sound did eventually improve a bit. It was as if about halfway through, the sound guy realised he’d made a bit of a tits and gone “Ah crap, I’ve had the guitars down all night! – Whoops!” and knocked them up a bit.

Parkway ran through a set of cool songs, like new ones ‘Sleepwalker’ and ‘Home Is For The Heartless’ (although I’m not a massive fan of that one. It’s really catchy, but I don’t think the singy bit works), and old faves and crowd-pleasers like ‘Boneyards’ and ‘Guns For Show, Knives For a Pro’. There’s nothing quite as fun as hearing a room packed with people screaming “Yippie Ki Yay, Motherfucker!” like they’re John Maclane on a very bad day! Genius.

About halfway through the set, the scenery onstage changed. It went from being the backdrop of new CD ‘Deep Blue’, to a sunset sea view, with palm trees and beach balls out in the crowd, like a scene from Home and Away. While on the subject, last time we met Parkway Drive, Ben asked singer Winston if he was from Summer Bay. He took it well, but I reckon it further fuelled the illusion that the Brits get all their Australian geographical knowledge from shite Aussie soaps! Meaning everyone in Australia either lives in Summer Bay or on Ramsay Street and all the female criminals get locked up in Wentworth Detention Centre. Did I go too far with the Prisoner: Cell Block H reference?

Also in this new section, Parkway threw out an Aussie Rules football into the crowd. “Whoever’s holding this by the time it gets to the merch stall gets £50 of Parkway merch!”. Now that was fun to watch. A full-on scrum headed towards us, as people were trying to rip the ball from one another! What was more fun was watching Ross take the entire scrum to the ground. He never got the ball though!

One point that I’m 50/50 on as to whether it was legit or not came near the end of the night. They pulled a kid out of the crowd who was holding up a sign claiming he could play the drums to ‘Romance Is Dead’ and they said “shall we give him a go?” They did. And he nailed it!!! Not just played it through quite well, he played it perfectly! Perfectly to the point where it looked like a set-up! Maybe it was, I dunno. But Channel 4 were there filming for some kind’ve documentary, so was it staged for that? Or was this kid just that. Damn. Good?

Regardless, another room sized chant of “So cry me a fuckin’ river, Biiiiiiiiiitch!” later and the end is approaching. They blazed into my fave ‘Carrion’ and it was ace!

Parkway Drive Live in Manchester

So, shite sound aside, Parkway Drive were on fire! They do technically amazing guitar work in a melodic and well thought out way. I don’t think that their newer stuff is as technical, or musically ‘on par’ with their previous albums, but it’s still cool. They’re a great band to watch and yes, I’ll probably go watch them next time they’re over too. Now all that was remaining was a chip naan!!!

It was late, it was raining AGAIN and I was still stuffed from 7(ish) pints and 15 (ish) slices of Pizza that hadn’t fully digested from the afternoon session in Pizza Hut. Chip naan, disappointingly, just wasn’t on the cards. I just couldn’t handle the stodge! The gut shaking from Emmure’s set probably never helped matters!

That, and with rain stopping play on the meet n greet section, it was time for the off. Nothing worse than getting your CD covers wet!! I’ll try getting some stuff signed tomorrow, and I’ll save some space for a chip naan. It’ll be Saturday night and I’ll need a treat! Onwards to JFAC then!

Episode III – Job For A Cowboy – Saturday 6th November. The Dark Side awaits…:-)