Artists:   Buckcherry, Silverjet, Venus Guns

Venue: The Corporation, Sheffield

Date: 5 June 2007   

Well as last minute decisions go to check out a band, this has got to be one of the best and well worthy of the 300 mile round trip down to Sheffield to see the mighty Buckcherry as part of their warm up for this years Download Festival.

To kick the night off were local band Silverjet, a band that have come a long way since their incarnation back in 2000, with varying band member changes along the way but with the band that we now know consisting of frontman and guitarist Dave Kerr, Andy Mewse also on guitar, Paul Oates on bass and completing the line-up Jon Hardcastle on drums.

The band opened up their hard rocking account with songs both old and new and got things underway with a personal favourite of mine the immense ‘Mardigras’, which got things started the way a good rock show should, with driving riffs and a thumping rhythm section which continued throughout their short but impressive set.

The band seem to have thrown the shackles of their heroes The Dogs D’Amour and The Quireboys sound away and have developed their own sound as the new songs included in tonight’s set showed to great effect, with one of these being the excellent ‘Love’, a real rockers delight. The band did what they a good support band is meant to do and warm up the crowd and they did throughout their half hour slot which came to a climax with ‘Face To Face’, which kept their old fans happy as well as the new ones who had never seen the band before pointed out to me after their rousing set.

Next up were London based The Venus Guns who brought a whole new sound to the night. The band are one of those bands that you will either hate or simply admire for bringing something new to the already genre laden world of rock. The band have that unique attribute of being something totally different with a sound that I can only describe as mix between The Doors and Aerosmith and with frontman Jay’s vocals the band are definitely working on being different and certainly influenced by what’s hot and what's not.

The band got things going with ‘Angry Pig’ and instantly they made people turn to the stage and take notice, whether it was for praise or retribution they did get themselves talked about and as they continued their set with ‘Vontease’ they began to win over the vast majority of the crowd, who to be honest were only waiting for the arrival of Buckcherry.

There were a couple of highlights for me as well as the two openers the country vibe of ‘I’m On Ya’ and the up tempo rocker ‘Leadfoot’ really stood out from the rest, with the latter rounding off a very interesting set.

Now the main reason for our journey, a band that I have been looking forward to seeing live ever since their self titled debut album and not being a fan of staying in a tent at festivals, the band's announcement of some warm up shows prior to Download gave the perfect opportunity to see them live.

As the venue was reaching its capacity it was clear that I wasn’t the only one who took snap at the chance of seeing their heroes live in a venue where you can actually see the band for one.

As the lights went down and the band slowly came on stage a unanimous cheer went out an even louder cheer went out a frontman Josh Todd came and took his position centre stage and announced it was “TIME TO ROCK”...

And rock they did as they opened things up with ‘So Far’ from the bands new album ‘15 Minutes’ with Todd doing what he was destined to do, entertain the masses, and from the off he did just that with the rest of the band equally charged up for the show. At this the storming set continued with another from the ‘Fifteen’ album this time with ‘Broken Glass’, which sounded superb on CD but live it was just awesome.

By now the crowd were just hyper and as the set continued they just got even more so, so when the band went into their back catalogue in particular the 'Timebomb' album for ‘Porno Star’ and ‘Fall’ the place just erupted.

With the majority of the set concentrating on the new album it was back to it for ‘Out of Line’ which saw a little audience participation as they clapped along and then things were brought down just a touch (and I mean a touch) with ‘Everything’, before really bringing things down with ‘Sorry’, a real smoothy of a track which is magic on disc but live it's just a monster.

It was time to bring things back up to speed with  the first single off the new album the obvious crowd favourite ‘Crazy Bitch’ and the equally superb ‘Next 2 You’ with both guitarists Keith Nelson and Stevie D just ripping things up and with Xavier Muriel thrashing away on the drums and Jimmy Ashhurst pounding out the bass, this was one of the many highlights of the show for me.

The band returned to 'Timebomb' for ‘Ridin’, another crowd favourite then once again it was back to ‘Fifteen’ for ‘Onset’, which Todd informed us was about leaders.  The band got a chance to get their breath back on ‘You’ before really going to town with ‘Slam’n', then it was time for the one that we all wanted to hear and the one that really got the ball moving for the band, both because of the superb musical content, but also because of its lyrical content, the show stopping ‘Lit Up’, which really saw the crowd throw away their inhibitions as they just congealed into a mass of excited sweaty bodies.

The band left the stage at this point but it wasn’t long before they returned to put the icing on the cake with ‘Brooklyn’, another of those tracks that sounds alright on CD but live it’s a totally different animal.  It has loads more bite and ferocity, something that you just can't capture in the studio.  This rounded off a great night of pure honest Rock N' Roll and if this was a warm up show for Download,  then when the band hit the stage there, you better get the fire 

 brigade on stand by, because if this show is anything to go by then they will set the stage on fire.  So if you're going down to Download this year, no matter what you're doing or what bands you're into, you have to check out Buckcherry as you won't be disappointed.
 

 

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