Woo ! Cavalera Conspiracy To Tour UK ! "The wait is over......the long awaited reunion of Max and Iggor of the legendary Sepultura" Tuesday 17th June - London Astoria And that's it. That's not a tour lads. Thanks a bunch.

Gig Review : Kerrang Tour 2008 @ Leeds Uni Refectory 04/02/08, Coheed & Cambria*****, Madin Lake***, Fightstar****, Circa Survive* It's a while since I've been to this venue, and it has been nicely refurbished. The Uni are obviously clawing back the money spent on the conversion by charging £2.70 for a can of bitter, bloody shocking price. Does this count as profiteering from your own students ? This is an audience you can easily feel old amongst, Chez, Mr Moosehead and myself look as if we've come along to make sure our kids don't get into any trouble. I saw Circa Survive as support to Coheed & Cambria a couple of years ago in Manchester and I thought they were pretty poor then. Two years on and nothing has changed, CS's sound is muddled and confused, too much jangly / noisy guitar work without any real definition or chord structure. As soon as their set has finished (to massive apathy from the crowd) I can't remember how many songs they played or what any of them sounded like. Wooo! It's Charlie from Busted, hail Charlie, he had it all, money, huge fame, a constant string of chart singles, and he gave it all up to come over to the dark side and form a proper rock band, well done that man. I like Fightstar, they play good songs with nice hooks and a decent chorus or two. The sound is a little muddled at points and this does reduce 'Floods' with it ephemera, Muse-like tones to a bit of a post hardcore grind but otherwise it is a good set. Madina Lake, hmmm, the thing is, they're a very average band with very average songs, but they work really hard. Twin one (Nathan, or is it Matthew ?) works the audience, thanking them, complementing them, he jumps around and looks the part. When he does a short speech though part of which is "we're not a band that cares about fashion or haircuts" I'm left confused, this is a band that was formed off the back of a tv reality show and whose main selling point is a pair of blonde, bouffant haired twins, your haircuts are your fame lads. Twin two (Matthew, or is it Nathan) jumps and twirls in time with the bassist and the band look to be having a great time. It's obvious from the exodus after ML's set ends that a sizeable part of the audience have come to see Madina Lake's unchallenging pop rock. ML are not a band band at all, I think they could progress well in the future, but they are punching above their weight with their debut album, their songs as yet are just alright rather than fantastic, but there is promise. They have a warm and fun stage prescence and with some stronger material could become quite decent. All time winner of the big hair stakes though is Claudio from Coheed, even without my specs I can see his giant globe of frizz approaching. I can't really do an unbiased review of C&C, up with Muse they are my favourite contemporary band, if I had to be bitingly honest I would say that tonight's sound quality isn't as good as when I saw them in Manchester, but that is something that has affected all the bands tonight to some degree. Coheed rip through a selection of their prog metal catalogue 'The Running Free' , 'Feathers' , 'The Suffering' , and they tear through a solid version of Iron Maiden's 'The Trooper' which divides the crowd into those who know their music history and those who are under 20. Cocheed are not the most moshable of bands, but the font of the crowd is a pushing, heaving, sweating mass (or at least that describes myself rather well) and a couple of circles open up during the choppier moments. Claudio talks a bit of puff about Leeds having bad karma for his girlfriend but apart from that he maintains a Matt Bellamy like distance from the audience and just gets on with the job in hand. He doesn't need to do anything extra because Coheed's material is so strong and as far as I can see, the crowd are lapping it up. In terms of songwriting and musical ability, C&C are head and shoulders above all the other acts on tonight's bill, the deliver a technically good set and whilst I would have preferred less support bands and thus a longer set from the headliners, they deliver a commanding show in their alloted time.

Dear Sepultura, We are coming to see you tonight and if you could play all of the following songs it would be quite mosh-tastic..... Refuse / Resist Territory We Who Are Not As Others Chaos B.C. Sepulnation Ways Of Faith Roots Bloody Roots Straithate Rattamahatta Cut Throat Yours, Yorkshiresoul, aged forty and a bit

Gig Review - The Wildhearts, Sign, GU Medicine @ Leeds Rio's 02/05/07***** Here we go again, tickets say doors 7pm, obviously this is Rio's whether in Bradford or Leeds so the doors remain firmly shut until well after the advertised time. This new Rio's is in an arcade though, so in winter when you have to queue because of a lack of organisation by the organisers, at least you won't be standing out in the rain, hurrah. We troop off to the Templars, where in 2 minutes flat I have been offered a fight by a septegenarian drinker who has taken objection to my 'Wildhearts fucked my radio' t-shirt, he explains that if he was twenty years younger he would have chinned me for wearing it, and that if his daughter were present, she would have chinned me as well. Splendid, two threats of violence and they come from a seventy year old and a woman. I decline both offers and thank the aged thug for his calm and pleasent manner. Finally inside Rio, which is in the old Heaven & Hell nightclub, is much nicer than the old Bradford venue. It doesn't smell, the toilets are actually quite alright, they have more than two barstaff working, indeed I count 8, the carpet is identifiably a carpet and not just a strange, black, sticky coating (there are rumours that the 'carpet' at Bradford Rio growled at the builders who were trying to take it up). First on stage are South Yorkshire lads GU Medicine, and they kick up a right old noise playing down and dirty metal with Lee Medicine's whisky and fags vocals grwling along. They sound a little like The Wildhearts at their very heaviest, I thought they were tremendous, with big powerful riffs and good songs, a good start to the evening. Next up are Icelander's Sign, and in keeping with tonights theme of four piece hard rock bands, they are a four piece hard rock band. Sign come across like a harder, better version of Him, complete with a stunningly good looking frontman. Singer and guitarist Zolberg, skinny and face painted with little dangly nipple piercings, fairly writhes and gyrates with his instrument, he's got star quality and sex appeal in spades. Sign are tight and well practised, and they only make one mistake in their set, playing Skid Row's Youth Gone Wild, why a mistake, well, as such a well known and well written rock song it did show that Sign could just tighten up their own songwriting a little. This is the first time I have seen or heard of Sign and they were very good. (In joke for Emily, regarding your question the other night - Arnarr G, the guitarist of this band, or the singer) And so to the current version of The Wildhearts, which sees Ginger and CJ joined by Scott Sorry on bass and Ritch Battersby on drums. I've got to say that this is the best line up of the band for years, they sound like they have been playing together for ever. Tonight is a Wildhearts greatest hits package, or considering the band's career, the greatest hits that should have been but never were. I didn't take notes obviously, I was through the best part of a gallon of beer and bouncing around like a very bouncy thing indeed. Every song is a winner, Vanilla Radio, I Want To Go (Where The People Go), OCD, Caffiene Bomb, the best rock songwriter of his generation and his band perform a faultless set of heavy, melodic rock. Ginger rabbits on in between tracks, moaning about how long the days seem now that he's clean of drugs and booze, waffling on about W.A.S.P. (who played the opening gig at this venue last week), asking the crowd whether they prefer this Rio or the old one (this one!), it's all good fun stuff. They play two or three tracks from the new album, and in good humour Ginger berates those who claim not to have bought it. The slightly overlong Rooting For The Bad Guy and The Sweetest Song get an airing. It's another great Wildhearts gig, the time seems to fly past, everyone has a great time (except for the bloke next to me, you with the glasses and power metal perm, look mate, if you don't like getting jostled at the front, piss off to the back alright ? It's the front of a rock crowd, people are not going to stand still just so you can take pictures on your mobile phone), the band play a great selection from their back catalogue and ably demonstrate that whether it's on cd or live, they are still Britain's best hard rock band. G.U. Medicine MySpace Sign MySpace The Wildhearts MySpace

Gig Review - Hammerfall*****, Krokus***, The Poodles****, Bradford Rio 23/02/07 I manage to get in just as the absurdly named Poodles are getting into their stride, they look like any one of a dozen cock rock bands (Motley Crue / Poison / Pretty Boy Floyd etc), their sound is a little more slid than that genre though, hard rock verging on power metal, strong clean vocals from Jacob Samuel and good catchy riffs. The Poodles hail from Stockholm and released their debut album 'Metal Will Stand Tall' last year, I know the album has been released in Sweden and parts of Europe, but I'm not sure if they have a UK record deal yet, but there's always Amazon if not. They were pretty good, Samuel worked the crowd, getting them to sing and clap along, and it looks like there is small core of Poodles fans amongst the sizeable crowd here to see the headliners. Krokus have never been one of my favourite metal bands, I'm not all that keen on Marc Storace's screechy vocal style, but the Swiss metal men put on a decent show, pumping out some of the old classics from their thirty odd year career alongside a couple of newer tracks from last year's Hellraiser album. Rhythm guitarist Dominique Favez is the spitting image of one of the Terrorvision boys, Leigh I think. Krokus get a good reception form the crowd. Swedish headliners Hammerfall have never managed to tour the UK despite a ten year, seven album career, singer Joacim Cans apologises for not gracing our chores before and the band get a rapturous reception from the audience, at the end of every song the fans start chanting the band's name and Joacim looks genuinely impressed with their reception. Hammerfall are great, power metal to the max, big riffs and plenty of solos, and, here they go, wahey! Four man synchronised hair twirling, with the exception of Stefan Elmgren who just nods his shiny, shaven bonce a bit. Hammerfall all look they are having tremendous fun, it's all smiles and laughs on stage, they are very accessible, stopping to shake the outstretched hands of fans at many point during the gig. As always I didn't take notes, but they stormed through Riders Of The Storm, Hearts On Fire, Legacy Of Kings, Let The Hammer Fall, Renegade, A Legend Reborn, Templars Of Steel and may others in a set that lasted for one and three quarter hours. The fans didn't want them to go, and Hammerfall didn't want to leave, they responded with encore after encore after encore, the licks and solos just kept pouring out. Hammerfall are great entertainment, in a genre seemingly divided between dull, turgid extreme/black metal and post pop punk, it's great to see some blokes are still holding a torch for old school heavy metal, keep the faith Hammerfall, and don't be strangers, we'd like to see you back before another decade is up. (If nayone has any pics from the gig that they would like to see posted, please get in touch) The Poodles MySpace Krokus MySpace Hammerfall MySpace

Tomorrow Night Hammerfall Krokus The Poodles At the lovely, fragrant Bradford Rio. I think I'll pop along for a night of melodic / power metal.

Gig After Gig After Motherfucking Gig 02/05/07: Bradford, Rios - The Wildhearts 03/05/07: Sheffield, Corporation - The Wildhearts 04/05/07: Manchester, Academy - The Wildhearts 05/05/07: Nottingham Rockcity - The Wildhearts Work allowing, I can make Braford, Manchester or Notts, who's coming ? There is a full tour, but these are the closest gigs.