Looking back on November 2009 (part 1)

In fine month of November 2009 my home town of Swindon was graced by a little wave of rock gods, Motörhead, one of my favourite bands, and Alice Cooper, who I’m seeing again at Sonisphere. Being the budding young rocker that I am, I went and saw both of them along with my motley crew (no relation to the Mötley Crüe) of metal heads.


The first of them playing was Motörhead, who were being supported by another two great bands, The Damned and Girlschool, as well as another lesser known band, Straight Lines, that were also pretty good even when compared with the others. Straight Lines were the first ones on stage with a performance that was full of energy but suffered from being in the shadow of the other support bands as well as Motörhead. This early on people were still getting in the mood, and getting people into that mood is what a warm up act’s job is.

Girlschool were next on, and as soon as that lady played the first bar on her beautiful, white dean flying V the crowd went wild! I will be honest and admit that I haven’t always been convinced by women in the rock industry, partly because of the way women present themselves in other branches of music. I had heard of Girlschool and hopped that could change my opinion on that and, boy, did they change my opinion! They are most definably a band I could go see again, on their own or supporting someone else. Their performance was only slightly damped for me by a fat, balding man shouting the very original lines of “get your tits out love” at Deirdre Cartright (lead guitar).

After a short interlude The Damned were on stage and were again a phenomenal success with the crowd. Immediately having a connection with us. Their punk rock sound went across the hall and livened everyone up. Both Captain Sensible (guitar) and Dave Vanian (vocals) had a real stage presence so not only their music was good but just watching them talk was entertaining, the line of “it’s quality not quantity with the Damned” when referring to the number of albums in recent years was a particular favourite of mine. Even what was going wrong was entertaining to watch, when Captain Sensible’s guitar was coming loose it was fun to watch a roadie run on stage and try and fix the problem with duct tape.

When the Damned had done their bit it was final time for Motörhead, the band all these people had come along for. One of the first things Lemmy did when he got on stage was turn all the amps up to full, I could feel each of the notes he played echoing in my chest. At this point adrenalin kicked in and me, my friends and all the rest of the crowd went mental. We pushed our way foreword as much as we could and the three of use that had made it that far started to headband, shout, and throw our fists in the air, everything you should do at a rock concert. At one point, during a solo, the drummer started producing tons of sticks that he hurled, over his shoulder and into the air. Twice my friend Chris clambered upon one of my other friends shoulders, something that got the attention of the band and (so we believe) resulted in a drum stick getting thrown our way towards the end of the gig. We all went home with ringing in our ears, sore throats and still pumped from the evening, it was an evening well spent!

No Guts. No Glory.

In 2007 the Aussie hard rock band Airbourne released their first full album “Runnin’ Wild”. This album was a great success in the rock and roll world getting good reviews pretty much across the bored, being praised for the adrenalin pumping and all round solid sound. However, it was inevitable that comparisons between them and probably one of the biggest bands in history, AC/DC (who also happen to come from that land we all like to call Australia), were going to be made. And Airbourne did little to avoid such comparisons, having done little (if anything) in the way of innovation in that album – to the untrained ear you could easily mistake much of it for AC/DC.

Three years on Airbourne have released their much awaited second album, “No Guts. No Glory” and in all honesty nothing has changed, their sound is still very much Aussie pub rock that their heroes AC/DC pioneered years before them. However, have you ever heard the phrase “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”? And if it applies to anything, it applies to this album. Yet again Airbourne have pumped out fast, all action tracks with everything rock and roll requires – sex, drugs and rock and roll. Many of these songs, such as “No Way But the Hard Way” and “Back on the Bottle”, have rapidly found their way into my most-listened-to list on my iPod and I often find my self silently singing along with a frown of concentration on my face during my bus journeys to and from college. One of the odd downers with this album was that as soon as I ripped it into my iTunes library it insisted it was “pop” instead of rock, this made me very upset and I promptly changed it.

The big question you should be asking is “is it worth getting this album”. This album may or may not appeal to you, it depends on a few things:

• Do you like AC/DC?
• Did you like Airbourne’s last album?
• Do you like good music?

If the answers to all of the above were yes, then I’d say get the album. I did, and I was bloody pleased with it!

Hello Metal Heads and Rockers!!

The world today seems to be getting ever more content with mediocrity. Content with music like the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana. But there are still a few of us who stand proud. Donning jeans, band t-shirts and leather. With our fists in the air shouting “No! We will not surrender to The X-Factor”, “No! We don’t want to listen to 50cent” and “No! We will not turn our music down!” All to the sound of Iron Maiden, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and many, many more metal gods.

Hello one and all and welcome to the Metal Head Matt blog. I'm Matt, I’m one of the few, and over the next weeks, months and years I plan on bringing you all I can from my rock and roll world.

Some of the things you have to look foreword to are me reviewing my extensive album collection, seeing my experience at Sonisphere 2010 (and if I can get the cash together Download and Hellfest), updates on my quest to get my band to actually practice so that maybe one day we'll be able to get a gig and much, much more! So stay in touch and subscribe!