|
Well at a time
when the genres of hard rock and melodic rock are said to be in decline
it's hard to believe that there are so many festivals taking part in
various parts of the world over the same a five week period. In fact
there are four, firstly United Forces of Rock in Germany, Melodic Rock
Fest in the US and two home grown festivals Z Rocks in Wigan and Firefest
in Nottingham.
It's just a pity these festivals could not have been
spread out a bit more over the course of the year to give more folks the
much needed opportunity to save up the money to support more than just one
or two of these four mini festivals. Although it's great to see
promoters willing to keep the scene alive and all parties involved should
take praise for whatever part they've played in these shows.
Enough of the intro and now let's get
down to the third of these shows, namely Z Rocks 2007 which I’m glad to
see has returned to what has become the adopted home of Melodic and Hard
Rock crowd over the years. Maximes itself still holds it's
nationally recognised monthly rock night dedicated to the best the genres
have to offer and continues to show loyal attendances with some patrons
now into their tenth year of attendance to their rock nights.
Now the Z shows in the past have always
been a sort of hit or miss affairs for a variety of reasons, so
expectations for the day were somewhat mixed. But things got off to
a reasonable start with the doors opening up just 15 minutes later than
advertised. A trivial thing you might say but if you've ever been to
these events before and have been left standing outside for 30 mins plus
in all weathers, you'll know this is good thing!
Maximes has always been a good choice
over the years for these types of events with both the Gods and Z Festivals having
taken place here many times before over the past 10 years. The venue itself
may not be in pristine condition, but if all you want is a seat, a few
beers and some good music, then you won't be disappointed. Sad to
see the food bar has now been removed from the venue but luckily there's
both KFC and Mac D's a few doors up for those that require sustenance. If you craved for anything more exotic
then you're not really rock n' roll are you?
Festivals are about good music not posh nosh!
BULLITT
Opening up today’s events were
Liverpool’s Bullitt who got things underway with a strong set of hard rock
songs. Opening up with ‘Give Me Your Love’ they set out their
intention to rock from the off.
|
|
Frontman Mikee Holmes lead the
charge with some pretty impressive vocals and along with guitarists Barry McKeown and Alan Kulke, and the rhythm section of Steph James on bass and
Brian Dixon on drums, they kept the hard rock going strong with ‘Train To Nowhere’, which
certainly blew away those Saturday night hangovers.
The set did feature a few slower moments
like ‘Street of Pain’, which kept the hard-core Melodic fans pleased
before bringing the tempo back up with ‘Playing With Fire’ and the slow
burner ‘Rain’.
|
Soon it was back to the rockier vibe with
‘Crazy’ before finishing off on a high with the best of the set ‘Bullet’. With the bands debut album due for
release early next year I’m sure this won't be the last time we see these
guys perform.
SACRED HEART
Next up were Sacred
Heart, a band who's name has been thrashed about as one to look out for,
but when the band came on stage I instantly thought we were going to hear
some out-and-out metal as visually the band had that demeanour about them,
mean and moody. Today we must have caught the band on an off day as
frontman and rhythm guitarist Paul Stead was not on form at all with his
vocals not matching the sound that came with the musicians behind him.
The set was meant to showcase their new album 'Shake' and featured the
tracks ‘Lost’ and ‘Paradise’ to name a couple were the redeeming features
of the set.
I truly believe it must have just been an
off day because after the band had finished their set the album itself was
played over the PA and sounded a hell of a lot better than their live
performance had. A bit disappointed by them to say the least as I'd
expected a lot more from this particular band.
CRIMES OF PASSION
Well the next band are one of the hardest
working bands around and if you haven’t seen them then where have you been
this year? Dale Radcliffe and the rest of the boys Andy, Kris and Kev have
supported the likes of Vaughn over recent months and are already booked
later in the year to support Jeff Scott Soto.
The band have thrown away all those past
memories when they were named Deadline and since Radcliffe took over as
frontman, they've never looked back. He's really turned the band
around with his quite unique stage persona. He plays every gig the
same, whether it be in front of 20 or 2000, the guy always gives 110% and
then some and over the past few months his voice has been sounding more
and more like Paul Shortino’s every time we've heard it.
|
 |
For me this is when the day really got
started as they opened up with ‘The Me I Lost’ and instantly Dale took the
lead and the rest of the band followed this consummate frontman and with
the guitar skills of Andy Lindsay bringing the whole venue alive with his
razor sharp licks, the band better keep hold of this guy as he has a god
given gift that has grown in leaps and bounds over the past couple of
years.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the set
was their excellent version of Dio’s ‘Holy Diver’, which the band gave a
heavier edge and it worked wonderfully.
The set
continued to impress with the likes of ‘Dream of Me’ and my personal
favourite of the day ‘Exit |
|
Wound’, which sounded great as always. After giving a quick
mention to promote the forthcoming JSS tour, to which
Dale quoted ... "come see us and you’ll get to see Jeff Scott Soto for
free! A bargain" ... |
The band showed they can really mix it
and after the Melodic tones of ‘Fight You’ it was time for some real hard
stuff with ‘No One Speaks Your Name’, which I believe will feature on the
bands up and coming new album due for release next year.
The set finished with ‘No One Speaks Your
Name’, another track from the forth-coming album, which will feature Tony
Mills on backing vocals. All told this was another fine set from the
Yorkshire band and with the JSS tour announced I’m sure they will be
feature again on these pages again soon.
LOST
WEEKEND
After the showmanship of Dale and Crimes
Of Passion it was back to the more traditional Melodic Rock bands with
Lost Weekend led by frontman Paul Uttley, they set about their 50 minutes
focusing on the bands no nonsense approach to Melodic Rock. This
band from Halifax romped through their set with the likes of ‘Higher Life’
with its hard rock edge and the excellent ‘Dead In The Water’ being a
couple of the highlights. Even the cover of Bob Catley's song
‘Spirit Of Man’, well I say cover, Utley actually co-wrote the song with
Dave Thompson, but it still sounded good no matter.
The set mixed old with new and
highlighted the talent that is still within this country when it comes to
Melodic Rock. The band rounded off an impressive set with ‘Cant Get
You Out Of My Mind’, which was a more hard rock offering which was much
more to my particular liking and showed the band can put a few licks
together when the need arises, good stuff.
STEEVI JAIMZ BAND
The surprise package when the line-up for
this years Z was announced was ex-Tigertailz frontman Steevi Jaimz’s new
band simply called The Steevi Jaimz Band.
Steevi has surrounded himself with a
young bunch of guys who are Danny Lee James on guitar, Trashy Benzi also
on guitar, Andi Hill on drums, and completing the line-up along with Jaimz
Joacim Sandin on bass.
|
After a delay due to tech problems with
the left side of the PA, which later we found out had totally blown, the
band settled down to delivering their own brand of 80’s fuelled glam on an
unsuspecting Melodic crowd. With a mere 20% remaining down the front
of the stage these were largely due to a number of Glam fans whose sole
intention was to catch this band and drink as much Jack and Coke as
possible in the time remaining.
I saw Jaimz a few years ago supporting LA
Guns in Manchester and wasn’t impressed, however this new incarnation of
the man was a much more sober and focused one as he lit up the stage as
only he can with his Iggy/Dee Snider crossover looks can do. The
|
 |
|
heavily tattooed frontman burned up the
stage as the band ripped through a set of Jaimz originals and
Tigertailz classics from the bands first album 'Young and Crazy', with
the likes of ‘Hollywood Killers’ and ‘Living Without You’,which Jaimz
dedicated to Pepsi Tate who died a few weeks ago, all going down a
storm with the young glammy’s and all us old school glam fans. |
Other songs of note were ‘Still Crazy’,
which seems to have become Jaimz’s theme tune. ‘Kick It Down’ and to
finish off 'Shoot To Kill', again from 'Young and Crazy'.
This may not have been everybody’s cup of
tea but they certainly brought a smile to my face and lightened up the
afternoon session of the day. Despite the earlier sound problems
they still rocked.
CHINA
The next few bands could have been
described as the meat and bones of the day, no disrespect to the bands who
had gone before, but this is when the day really started for many and by
the masses that joined the day late at this point, it was plain to see
that to many, the first five bands had been fillers, for it was the
remaining four most people were only interested in seeing, which I think
shows a lot of disrespect for these bands who have worked hard at their
craft.
But enough of my gibbering and back to a
band who hadn’t been on these shores for some 17 years. Those 80%
who hadn’t been impressed with Steevi Jaimz were now seen massing back
down in front of the stage for the return of the Swiss giants China.
|
The band immediately rolled back the
years with ‘Shout It Out’ with Eric Saint Michaels leading the pack with
some fine vocals and continued to do so as the hard rock kept coming with
‘Medicine Man’. To show the band weren’t all about what has gone
before they introduced a new song ‘Trapped In The City’, which certainly
brought the crowd to boiling point. Then it was time for something
from their 'Sign In The Sky' album with ‘Dead Lights’, which for me had
traces of fellow Swiss band Krokus guitar sound about it.
The hard rocking continued with the
superb ‘Lay Down On Me’ from the excellent 'Natural Groove' album before
it was back to the bands debut album for ‘Rock City’. This was where
Michaels announced today’s show was being recorded live, much to the
delight of the crowd.
|
 |
It was time for another new song ‘Stay’
before the band put their talents together for a superb cover version of
‘Talking ‘Bout Love’, to which Michaels said that if anyone didn’t
recognise that song, they'd paid too much for their ticket.
Then it was back to the 'Sign In The Sky'
album for the obvious crowd favourite ‘In The Middle Of The Night’.
The mix of old and new continued with another new slice of pure hard rock
with ‘Come On Now Scream’ before the icing on the cake 'All I Do Is Wait’,
which rounded of the performance of the day so far for many.
KINGDOM COME
Before the next band there was a special
announcement in the form of the first few bands confirmed for Z Rock 2008.
These being Bonfire, XYZ and Von Groove, with the date confirmed for 20th
April 2008.
|
 |
This announcement acted as a sort of body
swerve to what was going on stage with the sound guys and the German techs
that had come with Kingdom Come as they insisted on sound checking the
snare drum for some 25 minutes, which has started to major league irritate
many of the crowd, including myself, up until this point.
Things
were already beginning to run over 20 minutes late between the published
times but this really threw a spanner in the works.
The band were finally announced as
returning to British shores after some 17 years and 25 minutes, much to
the amusement of me and many others.
|
They opened up eventually with Wolf and
the rest of the band unleashing the very Zeppelin-esque set with tracks
from their back catalogue, but if it wasn’t for the songs I knew, then I
would have sworn they played the same song over and over again, such was
the similarity of the songs. With the exceptions like ‘Get It On’,
‘Living Out Of Touch’, 'Pushing Hard' and the show stopper ‘Do You Like
It’, all going down well. But the band had lost a lot of peoples
interest well before they had come on stage, largely due to the delay and
many people took this opportunity to go and get something to eat and have
a smoke. Pity the band had to suffer because of this.
HOUSE OF LORDS
Now to the band which I must admit became
the sole intention of my weekend. The House Of Lords had just blew
me away with their return at Firefest and when I caught them again at
Bradford Rio’s they were simple magnificent, so I had high expectations
for tonight. Would the band do the business again? Well quite
simply they blew the rest of the days bands off the stage.
There were no sound issues, the band came
on stage and put on one hell of a show with James Christian sounding
simply superb and Jimi Bell, well his guitar playing was a masterclass and
that’s only from the opener ‘Sahara’. The power and grace of
Christian's voice raised the whole event to another level as the band went
into Melodic bliss for ‘Talkin’ Bout Love’, before the excellent ‘Love
Don’t Lie’ and its equally superb ‘Chains of Love’.
By now the
temperature in the venue had risen by some 10 degrees and things were
about to get a lot hotter as the first few chords of ‘Rock Bottom’ were
heard the crowd just went wild with Bell at his finest and Christian
sounding superb it with BJ Zampa just thrashing out the back beat no need
for an over zealous drum sound check every thing was top notch and the
backing vocals of bassist Chris McCarvill sound a clear as a bell so again
no problems with the sound here either.
This new incarnation of House of Lords
have given the whole band a much heavier and rockier vibe than ever with
the old songs sounding fresh and this mixed with the newer material the
future looks good for the band.
The set continued with ‘SOS’ is one of
those new songs that just sounded great on the World Upside Down and live
it’s just a monster with Jimi Bell just reigning supreme as guitarist of
the day.
‘Edge Of Your Life’ is a fine example of
how the older material has been given a fresh lease of life under this new
line-up the song seemed huge on tonight’s stage.
Following ‘All The Way To Heaven’ it was
time for one of my all time favourite House Of Lords songs and I suppose
many others too the quite sublime ‘I Wanna Be Loved’ which is always good
to hear live and epitomizes the words Classic Rock in my view.
|
 |
There was just time to take a break from
the music as James announced that it was just a few days till Chris’s
birthday and as a special surprise Tony Marshal came on stage with cake in
had and presented it to Chris along with a book that people in the crowd
had signed with birthday wishes to him a touching moment for McCarvill
indeed.
After the prezzy giving it was back to
the music for ‘These Are The Times’ and ‘I’m Free’ and ‘Your Eyes’ which
all brought out the best in Christian vocals.
|
But when Bell ripped into his solo he
became one with his guitar and just ripped it up like a man possessed
before the band finished off with a show stopping version of ‘Slip Of The
Tongue’ which put the finishing touches to one of the finest sets of the
year for me by any band so how was Don Dokken going to follow that I asked
myself.
DOKKEN
Well to be honest I thought the sound for House Of Lords was great but
then the German techs took to the stage to get things ready for Dokken and
from this point on things got from bad to worse. Again the drums had
to be pitch perfect and again this wasn’t going the techs way, so much so
he took a major strop starting f*ing and blinding over the mic, kicked a water bottle off stage
before stomping off to the side of the stage to kick seven shades out of a flight case!
This whole ridiculous behaviour set the whole day
back by almost an hour, with people starting to filter out of the building
as they had buses, trains and the like to catch. You forget this was a
Sunday night and many people had to go to work in the morning.
After the delay the lights eventually went out and the band were announced,
but there was no movement on stage for at least ten minutes and when the band
did finally emerge Don didn’t look particularly happy. This mood didn’t improve
as the set went on for the opener 'Kiss Of Death', during which the sound was not to his
liking and the almost constant feedback from the monitors was a constant
distraction and annoyance for all.
The band themselves could sense the tension from Don with Barry Sparks
constantly checking in with Mick Brown on the drums.
But the set continued with ‘Into The Fire’ and the mid tempo-ed rocker ‘The
Hunter’.
It was clear that Don was keeping away from the songs on the high end of
the scale, vocally you have to remember he isn’t a spring chicken anymore.
Just as Don seemed to be getting
into it someone with a flash on their camera in the photo pit seemed to be
rapidly getting more on
his nerves, even more than the monitor
|
 |
|
feedback. At one point he looked at breaking
point. The camera looked professional but the person behind it certainly
wasn’t acting it.
|
‘Breaking The Chains’ was next with young gun guitarist Jon Levin showing
what he can do. The set was still fraught with sound problems as the
band continued with
the classics. ‘Without You’ saw Don get a helping hand with the
chorus from the crowd, who just sang their little hearts out and cheered along,
many shouting words of encouragement to the band, because for
many here today, this was a long dreamed of chance to be close to their hero.
‘When Heaven Comes Down’ also got the Wigan choir approval as the band
seemed to be battling through the set.
Don then suddenly announced that there would just be one more song. l looked at my watch and
yes they had only been on stage for some 45 minutes, which led me to
believe that either the sound, or the late stage time, or fatigue from crossing over
from Europe and having to return to Milan for a show the next day, or
perhaps a
combination of all these factors, had led to the band cutting short the set.
At least they finished on a high with ‘In My Dreams’, which like every
other song went down a storm with the hoards of fans still gathered at the
front of the stage. Despite the sound problems the fans loved every
moment of the set however short it ended up being.
To sum up, band of the day without a shadow of a doubt was most definitely House of Lords.
Surprise package of the day was China. Disappointingly short set went to Dokken,
and overall showman
of the day was a draw between Dale Radcliffe of Crimes of Passion and Steevi
Jaimz.
We’ll have to see what other bands Mr Alger gets for the April show before
I rush out a get a ticket because £47.50 for Bonfire, XYZ and Von Groove
doesn’t light my fire.
But all in all a good day and one that got good support with about 500 ish
turning up for the days events. So on the
whole, the fans of this genre was the winners.
|
