Event: Z Rock Festival 2007
Bands: Dokken, House Of Lords, Kingdom Come, Steevi Jaimz Band, China, Lost Weekend, Crimes Of Passion, Sacred Heart & Bullitt
Venue: Maximes, Wigan
Date: 7th October 2007 

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.

 

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