TheLastCandle said:
Well, personally there is no way in hell I would miss the H&H Ronnie tribute. Apparently it's just a one off and I doubt we'll ever see anything like it again. I'm a huge Dio fan though, so I suppose there really was no choice for me anyways.
Ended up seeing BLS in the end, i'm the biggest fan of Dio's Sabbath stuff and felt it'd be more of a spectacle to fans of him and Heaven & Hell, but caught a few songs of H&H before heading to the metal stage. It was a pretty good festival overall, saw a ton of great bands; (in chronological order)
Touchstone - first band of the day, a hard prog act with a female singer, we caught the last two songs and they weren't too bad, although the cover of Mad World by Tears for Fears was a bit weird.
Pendragon - never heard them before and i'm no big fan of prog rock, but they were EPIC, lots of spacey keyboards acompanied some shit hot lead guitar.
Orange Goblin - OG always put on a fantastic show and this set was no exception, they closed with my favourite track
Scorpionica \m/
Hammerfall - my first time seeing them and they didn't disapoint, although they could have done with a longer set.
Cathedral - not much of a fan, but my mates wanted to see them. Meh.
Saxon - British cheese metal at it's finest, and although they've still got it they seemed somewhat mechanical in their delivery.
Heaven & Hell - caught the first 4 songs, Jorne Lande was providing vocals and did an admirable job with Mob Rules & I, then Glenn Hughes came out for Country Girl & Children of the Sea. At this point we left for BLS, but apparantly Lande & Hughes traded on and off with the rest of the set before they both came out along with Phil Anselmo to finish with Neon Knights.
Black Label Society - fucking awesome set, no regrets, they got some of the newer stuff out of the way before going through the fan favourites. Loved Genocide Junkies, Superterrorizer, Stillborn & Bleed For Me.
UFO - day 2 was meant to kick off with Wishbone Ash, but some of us were a bit worse for wear and we arrived late, but thankfully in time to see UFO who kicked ass but didn't have much of a crowd that early in the day on the main stage (also, a lot of people seemed to be there just to hear Doctor Doctor played). They kept having technical difficulties with Vinnie Moore's amp stack, it kept cutting out mid-song and was dead for a good five minutes, so Phil Mogg kept the crowd entertained with some jokes and a few stories about growing up in the East End.
Bachman Turner Overdrive - caught the end of their set, just in time to hear Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
High on Fire - not too familiar with this Stoner Metal band from the US, but one of my friends is a big fan so we got up front for this one. Wasn't bad at all and they were loud as hell, but they're a bit more repetative than I like my stoner bands.
Uriah Heep - they played the entirety of the Demons & Wizards album and while it was something i'm really glad I saw live, I would have liked a few tracks from their other LPs.
Opeth - started late because of technical problems, but they opened up with one of my favourite tracks Windowpane, before kicking into heavier territory. I also noticed a distinct divide between Opeth fans, a lot really aren't familiar with the older stuff and songs like Demon of the Fall or The Lepper Affinity didn't get quite as much of a reaction as Lotus Eater. Got the meet the band quickly after the set, as they signed a bunch of stuff for people through the fence - had nothing to sign, so I settled for telling Mikael that The Moor's one of my all-time favourite songs and i'm gutted that they've never played it on any of the 3 occasions i've seen them.
Down - my 5th time seeing Down, I have to say they're quite possibly the best live band i've had the pleasure of seeing. Phil complained about the smallish crowd and the amount of people standing motionless with their arms folded, but to be fair the festival wasn't really geared to metal and there were a lot of middle aged people there - he eventually managed to rouse the immediate crowd into action as the band kicked into gear. Down play with such energy and clearly feed off the crowd going metal for them, it feels wrong not to give something back. Pretty standard setlist consisting of all the fan favourites, along with a track or two from III (which Phil introduced as "here's a couple of songs from our third album, y'know...the one you guys don't like as much as the other two" :lol) before they finished, as usual, with Bury Me in Smoke.
Overall it was a really fun festival and freaking amazing having something like this take place so close to home - hoping they bring it back next year.
