Tag Archives: live review

Slightly more than a year ago, the curtain came down on the long and storied career of the mighty Thin Lizzy, when the band played their penultimate gig on Irish soil as they bade farewell to touring and prepared to launch a new identity through which to progress the Lizzy …

For any promoter to stage the amount of quality gigs which James Loveday puts on – this was his 45th straight ‘RocKD’ event of the year, not counting the number of visiting acts he has brought our way over the past 13 years – is no mean feat.  It’s not …

Forty-five years.  Forty-five fucking years.  Not only is that the length of time since Black Sabbath first unleashed their pioneering brand of heavy metal on a deeply unsuspecting world, and changed its musical landscape forever, but it also how long it has taken the genre’s founding fathers to appear on …

With the grey clouds broiling overhead heralding the true onset of a wet Belfast winter, and even the hardiest of ‘fleg’ protestors scurrying for the comfort of the gluhwein tents in the nearby Christmas Market to which they so vehemently object, the the most diehard warriors from the city’s metal …

Tonight’s gig was supposed to be headlined by Bristolian gore merchants Amputated, but unfortunately the brakes on their hired tour bus failed as they travelled to meet the ferry, and therefore the band were forced to cancel a gig for the first time in their 11 year history.  Nevertheless, promoter …

Opening the bill for two bands of the quality of tonight’s ‘co-headliners’ was never going to be an easy task, but LA veteran newcomers Venrez did their task with aplomb and confidence – perhaps buoyed by vocalist Stephen Berez’s earlier sampling of the finest whiskey ever distilled, Black Bush. Despite …

The cavernous Odyssey Arena – built more for ice hockey and other sporting activities than gigs – is curtained off about two-thirds of the way down its length, indicating that tonight’s gig might be suffering the effects of booking two arena shows within 100 miles of each in two cities …

For many bands, it must be a burning ambition – often unfulfilled for all too many – to headline the most iconic venue in their hometown… in the case of Belfast, the venue in question is the Ulster Hall, a Victorian building which is the city’s equivalent, as more than …

There are times as a music journalist when you want to cast aside the notebook and its pages of extraneous adjectives and hyperbolae and strip a review down to your most basic primal reaction to the event you have just witnessed… in the case of this evening’s debut Belfast performance …

In these difficult economic times, it makes financial sense – for both the fans and the acts concerned – for bands to team up and offer the best possible deal for their combined fan bases:  it’s a win/win, as they say in marketing circles, with both the bands and their …

The latest instalment of the weekly RocKD’s epic 13-year odyssey brought together another damn fine trio of bands who once again demonstrated the extremely rude state of health which the Northern Ireland metal scene is enjoying at the moment (as anyone who attended the recent Highway To Hell event in …

A little month to go before their official return to the UK, Aussie hellraisers Airbourne picked the best possible place outside their homeland to do what they do best, and that is raise the aforesaid hell… with plenty of merriment thrown in, as they stopped off for almost a full …

While I’ve often bemoaned poor attendances at gigs on ‘school nights’, it always pleasing to see some shows buck the trend, as it were, and so it is a genuine pleasure to be able to report, right at the outset, that, despite it being a Sunday, there was a very …

I’m going to lay my cards on the table right from the off and state, with supreme confidence, that this was one of the best – if not THE best – live performances by a local band in front of a local crowd that I have seen, certainly in a …

For the penultimate night of their sixteen date UK tour Zico Chain came to Sound Control, Manchester. The venue has different rooms and today’s gig was taking place on the ground floor. A smallish venue with, on the minus side, pesky pillars but on the plus side, a bit of …

It’s Friday night and I am heading down to the Oh Yeah Centre to see The Devil Wears Prada on their 8:18 album tour, featuring Napoleon and Dead Harts for support acts. I am looking forward to this show because it has such a great line up AND it’s a …

The Diamond Rock Club, buried deep in the County Antrim hills, seems to be the venue of choice for Glaswegian troupe Attica Rage to end up their tours, as this is the second such occasion they’ve chosen the best li’l rock club on the island of Ireland to host their …

Just one month after the release of their third album – Spirit, Finnish Glam Rock band Reckless Love came over to the UK for a 9 date UK tour. The opening night conveniently (for me) being at Manchester Academy 3. Support came in the form of Australian born Laura Wilde …

All ages gigs, when you get to a certain ‘vintage’, can be weird affairs at best and uncomfortable ones at worst.  It’s OK if you’ve got your own sprog to keep an eye on, but when you’re there on your ownsome merely to observe the proceedings on stage, it can …

It takes dedication and commitment to do what we do – especially as we do it on a voluntary basis and for the love of the music we write about – and so it is with these two qualities in mind that your humble reviewer finds himself reviewer finds himself …