Since the last and first edition was a great success, the Fade in organization and the City Council of Leiria decided to continue the fest this year in the same spot: The Castle of Leiria; let me tell you a little bit about this magnificent piece of architecture: this medieval Castle was built by the first king of Portugal D. Afonso Henriques in the XII century, first it was used as a military fortress against the moors and later on as a residency of King Dinis and Saint Isabel the Queen (that’s when the Castle lost its military function). So we have a romanesque/gothic imponent structure that in some extent reflects the style of the music and the fest itself.
The stages inside the Castle were three (one more than the previous edition) that were distributed by ground levels so if you wan...
Category Gig/Festival Reviews
The last day of the festival was nicely thought by the organisers. Only 3 bands on the main stage, with the last show ending at 9 PM so that everyone could get home in decent time and start the working week on Monday somewhat rested. We went there early to watch the performance of the crazy Norwegians from Kvelertak. I just saw them live 2 weeks prior to Tuska, at Norway Rock festival, and they had such an amazing show that I had to convince everyone I could to go and see them. And I am pretty sure no one was disappointed. The 6 piece band from the West coast of Norway play a weird mix of punk/black metal as far as I noticed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people find other genres in their music...
Read MoreSaturday at Tuska had the main stage reserved for more ’mellow’ music – at least if you consider all the thrash and death from the first day. The opener was Epica, Dutch symphonic/progressive metal led by a very charismatic Simone Simons surrounded by long hair tall Dutch men. With a bunch of nice keyboards and guitar solos supporting Simone’s melodic voice, the band was really loved by the people gathered early in the afternoon. It’s also a nice show to watch as everyone has a great time on stage and I like the sight they create when the long haired stop in front of the metal cooling fans and start looking like Medusa impersonations.
I went for a short while in the building hosting the 4th stage and was nicely surprised by the intensity of Medeia’s brutal death metal...
Read MoreHelsinki’s ’pain’ festival as I was told the name translates into, goes all the way back to 1998 and has seen a yearly growth in the number of attendees and also the quality of bands that performed on its stages. The 2011 edition (22 – 24 July) was the first one held in a new location, called Suvilahti, a former industrial area by the way it looks, with less vegetation but surrounded by factory buildings which had their advantages at times. The Finnish weather was incredibly friendly for the three days and except few minutes of rain, we were greeted by a lot of sunshine. My biggest positive surprise at this festival comes from the people, especially the employees/volunteers working as guards or serving drinks and foods...
Read MoreThe second high voltage festival took place on 23rd and 24th July 2011. The line-up was superb – some really top bands on the bill including Judas Priest, Slash, Thin Lizzy, Queensryche, Dream Theatre, Jethro Tull and many more.
The location for the festival was once again Victoria Park in London – a large park in Hackney with good transport links (they’d have been a lot better had LUL not decided to shut half the underground lines for the weekend).
The park gives plenty of space for the event, but does come with a major problem – its in a residential area, so the council imposes strict noise levels that are far lower than most similar event have to work with...
A few years ago, Thin Lizzy weren’t at the top of their game. The new lineup however, with Ricky Warwick as their frontman is back on form and today they make things look easy as they put in an excellent performance packed with classic hits including ”Jailbreak”, ”Whiskey in the jar”, ”The Boys are back in town” and ”Waiting for an alibi”.
For ”Dancing in the moonlight”, Michael Monroe joined Thin Lizzy on stage to accompany them on saxophone. Ricky Warwick is a superb frontman and while some old diehards will never accept any version of the band that doesnt include Phil Lynott, most fans are happy with the current lineup. A nice touch was dedicating one of the songs to Phil Lynott and Gary Moore – two former and deceased Thin Lizzy legends.
The large crowd certainly looked to enjoy the...
Thunder were probably one of the most eagerly anticipated bands on the Sunday at High Voltage, and the size of crowd they drew supported that. This was a rare chance to see them live since the band ”quit” two years ago.
The intro tape started (ACDC’s Thunderstruck) and the excitement built rapidly till they came on stage to a load of applause and cheers.
The set didnt get off to a good start – twice during the first song (Backstreet symphony), the sound from most of the instruments cut out completely, but singer Danny Bowes didn’t let minor details like that put him off and he carried on. Backstreet symphony was a great choice to start the set with – a definite crowd pleaser, but there were plenty more still to come.
Danny Bowes is an excellent frontman who gets the crowd clapping alon...
Read MoreLike Slash, Michael Schenker has played with several bands and also chooses to play a range of material, including songs from The Scorpions (Rock you like a hurricane & Another piece of meat) and UFO (Rock Bottom & Doctor Doctor).
For his set at High Voltage Michael Schenker has brought a few guests with him. His brother Rudolph Schenker takes a day off from the Scorpions to come and play on ”Rock you like a hurricane”, ”Hanging on” and ”Doctor Doctor”, UFO legend is wheeled out for ”Rock Bottom” and ”Doctor Doctor”, and Jeff Scott Soto comes on stage for Doctor Doctor. Pete Way seems like a shadow of his former self which is a shame.
Michael Schenker often hides at the back of the stage and plays while barely acknowledging the crowd, but today thankfully he’s obviously in a good mood an...
Read MoreKicking off with ”Living in the past” I was impressed by the sound – it was the clearest sound I’d heard all weekend. Either the prog stage had better sound than the other two stages all weekend or they’d got it right for Jethro Tull, but either way this was great news. ”Living in the past” is one of the few Jethro Tull songs I know so this was a great start to the set for me. The second track was another popular track – ”Thick as a brick”, and it was clear that many of the crowd knew all the words to it.
Jethro Tull have a huge amount of material to choose from with numerous albums spanning a career dating back over 40 years...
Black Country Communion are a fairly new group, but are a ”supergroup”- Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham & Derek Sherinian. This is a band that has a lot ot live up to based on the careers of the individual members. As a new band they’re at a disadvantage to bands like Thunder or Thin Lizzy who have plenty of crowd pleasing hits to include in their set. Black Country Communion only have two albums of material to work with.
The sound is definitely very 1970s Rock – the unmistakable vocals of Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) certainly help give that 70’s feel but there’s more to it than that – its the overall feel of the combination of the music and the vocals.
The show is closed with a Joe Bonamassa song (The Ballad of John Henry) followed by the highlight of their set for most people...
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