We forgot to ask Gary Wolstenholme if there were as many annoying pricks wearing backpacks at Hatebreed’s Manchester Academy 2 show as there were when the band played London, mainly because Jamey Jasta’s face just brings out the urge to M0SH in us. Yep.
This is the week Sempiternal was meant to be released before those damned leakers leaked the crap out of Bring Me The Horizon‘s excellent fourth album. This is the London leg of their release tour and if you’re thinking, “Oh, they’re only playing Koko,” it’s because this is a special intimate show. We crowbarred our way into the gig.
Pre-gig meal: Sainsbury’s prawn mayonnaise sandwich, standing outside the venue.
6 things we learnt when we saw BMTH in Camden…
The weather might’ve taken a sudden turn for the better here in the UK, but the one thing we can always count on is that we’re never far from gangs of young men making surly, dark, and altogether stormy music. Such is the doom thrown out by Bongripper and Conan. Our man around the North West, Matt Thomas, was on hand to snap the lot of them when they came to Liverpool.
We’ve talked about how punk rock Enter Shikari are before. Right now they could be playing massive venues, raking in the cash, and generally have a bloody nice time of it being the world premier whatever-you’re-calling-it-this-week-core banbut-it’s-got-lasers-and-electronics-core band. But instead, they’re off playing deliberately much smaller venues than usual, just because they bloody want to. That’s how our photographer, Matt Thomas, was able to get so up close and personal with the action when they played the New Brighton (not near the Brighton you’re probably thinking of) Pavilion last week.
Look, we’re not going to muck about with a fancy intro paragraph here – if Tony Kakko’s face and pose in that photo above haven’t convinced you to check out Gary Wolstenholme‘s galley of photos from Sonata Arctica’s Manchester show earlier this week, well, nothing we say here is going to either.
We can’t get enough of festivals here in the UK. Summer festivals, Winter festivals, and – right now at least – Spring festivals. Earlier this month, Hard Rock Hell hosted the very first Hard Rock Hell AOR and Hard Rock Hell Prog, and we were naturally on hand to photograph the whole shebang.
When are the Misfits not the Misfits? Well, legally speaking, the Misfits are the Misfits as long as founder member and bassist Jerry Only is performing in the band. After all, he and Glenn Danzig fought legal battles over this stuff years ago. That’s why the band that have just finished touring the UK bears very little resemblance to any of the classic line-ups of the band that have come over to these shoes before. They don’t even have Michael Graves as a vocalist anymore.
It’s been ten years since the release of Finch’s debut album What It Is To Burn. Feeling old yet? Let’s face it, most of you reading this are here because you’re off to the remaining dates on this new reunion jaunt. Here’s what you can expect from the Finch 10th anniversary tour.
Six things we learned when watching the Finch 10th anniversary tour in Manchester:
Although they’re forced to call themselves “Ghost B.C” in America now, here in the UK the Jägermeister Music Tour is still headlined by a band called Ghost. There’s no legal issues so far as we or anyone else we know can think of regarding Gojira and The Defiled being forced to use different name when stateside, so how about we cut all this introductory chit-chat and get right to the photos, okay?
It’s time for another Thrash Hits festival splash page – and this time it’s for Hammerfest. All of our Hammerfest 2013 coverage from the weekend will be linked to on this here post, so make sure you bookmark it as it’s all you’re going to need. Yep. That means individual band coverage (photos, setlists and maybe even some reviews), all the dodgy rumours and awful gossip our man David Keevill overhears, and every single photo of Wales-based debauchery that Gary Wolstenholme and Jenn McCambridge snap will be here.