Clutch are the archetypal band-that-nobody-has-a-bad-word-to-say-about. Go on. Try. You can’t think of one. At least not a honest one. See? Our man Gary Wolstenholme went on down to the Manchester Academy with his camera to capture Neil Fallon and co doing what they do best: being great.
Has it really been twenty years since the release of Troublegum? The Mercury Prize-nominated Therapy? album that went on to help define their entire career? Yes, yes it has. That’s why they’ve released a deluxe boxset re-release of the album, and are currently on tour across the UK playing that album in full. We sent our man Gary Wolstenholme over to the Manchester to dodge wave after wave of crowdsurfers that piled over the barrier at the O2 Academy 2 when the band played ‘Screamager’.
Dual-headliner tours are always a weird one. No matter what fancy-pants arrangements the bands come to, no matter if they have a stricty-enforced on-off switch for who plays last every night, naturally one band rises above the other. And so it goes with Killswitch Engage and Trivium, who are currently enacting this age-old conflict at venues up and down the length of the UK. Our snapper in the North, Gary Wolstenholme, was on hand in Manchester to shoot both bands when they brought that unspoken conflict to the O2 Academy.
Metal Hammer’s annual Defenders of the Faith tour is usually a bloody good excuse to catch a whole crop of excellent bands all in one place – this year’s line-up was particularly impressive, with headliners Amon Amarth being backed up by the likes of Carcass, Hell, and Bleed From Within. We got our principal photographer, Mr Gary Wolstenholme, to head on down to Manchester to catch one of the last big metal tours of 2013 do its dirty business all over the O2 Academy.
It appears that legendary punk rockers, Rocket From The Crypt are playing three dates (at least) in the UK this December.
December
01 Manchester Gorilla
04 Leeds Brudenell Social Club
06 London Camden Koko
MEGADAVE. We’ll never get tired of calling Dave Mustaine that. No matter how many stupid things he says off stage, no matter how many awful new Megadeth albums called Super Collider that he puts out, and no matter how many onstage temper tantrums he throws because he’s unhappy with the stage lighting, no matter how many homophobic slurs he wants to throw at people who’ve paid money to go watch him play live – despite all of that, he’ll still always be MegaDave.
Y’know how people are always failing to get the pun in the name ‘Thrash Hits’? It happens all the time. You’d think after five long years of doing this, people would’ve caught on to the fact that it’s a play on words on Smash Hits, and a recognition that we (in part) try to channel their simultaneous irreverence and love for their subject matter, albeit from a metal perspective. And that we’re not exclusively a website about thrash metal.
Sometimes though, you have to give the idiots what they want, which is why we’re publishing theses photos by ace snapper Gary Wolstenholme of Kreator’s recent UK tour. Sure, we’re a month late. They fell down the back of the digital sofa, what with our relaunch and all. Anyway, hush your bellyaching and go look at his shots of Kreator, Evile and Xentrix playing live in Manchester.
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.
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.
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: