Patches

Back before my time, it was common for rockers to wear denim jackets covered in studs and patches. Now a days it’s near impossible to get studs anywhere but the strange world of the internet, however, if you’re lucky you can still find patches in some smaller shops that sell alternative clothing, here in Swindon I’ve been lucky enough to stumble across two such shops, The Little Rock Shop and The Trinket box. Unfortunately these shops didn’t have a huge range of patches but their proximity to me made up for that and I able to make a start patching my jacket (see the picture to the right). If given a larger choice of patches I might not have chosen to have Green Day or “Parental Advisory” patches, but this is what I had to work with, they were only £1.50 each and I secretly quite like Green Day.


My good friend Chris (who wrote the Blaze Bayley live post) had patched his denim jacket months before me (you can see it below here), however he had risked delving into one of the dark recesses of the internet, eBay. Here he came across a huge range of patches that were only slightly more expensive than the ones I had bought from the shops at £2.50 not including p&p.


It seems to me that the best place to find the best patches would be online, even if this means spending a little bit more, and in hind sight I probably should have gotten mine offline. But what ever your preference, I would strongly urge you too patch your denim jackets and show your support for your favourite bands, or at least ones you can get patches for.

Blaze Bayley live at 12 Bar (Chris guest writes)

Well it was dark and stormy night... not really, just dark, but on the night of Thursday 11th February a certain ex singer of metal legends Iron Maiden was due to gig at The 12 Bar Swindon. The man who would not die had returned to Swindon on tour for his latest album, Promise and Terror.

The gig opened with Blazes support, Sinocence, who were also advertising an album, Scar Obscura, although not massively known they put on a very good show, with songs such as perfect denial from the latest album and songs from their previous albums. After coming offstage all mingled with the audience until Blaze took to the stage, this included signing autographs, chatting and selling merchandise.

Having just arrived off the back of a gig at the Nags Head in High Wycombe the day before you would think Blaze Bayley’s show would suffer, but no, it was as energetic as ever, the Swindon gig being the 3rd gig in 3 days and the middle of 6 in 6 days.

Blaze and his group, self named as Blaze, played songs from the new album and old albums, quoting along the lines of “This is for all of you who have kept me going throughout everything, I am the man who would not die” also playing songs from the last album such as ‘Voices from the Past’ and ‘Samurai’. As part of the tour Blaze would play some of his songs from his years in Iron Maiden, one maiden song at each gig, 2009 marking the 10th year of his departure from the band, in this case he played ‘Lord of the Flies’.

A truly energetic (and loud) performance from all members of the band, Larry Paterson (drummer) and David Bermudez (bassist) especially, there was some real crowd pleasing going on. And from seeing him live it is clear why Blaze Bayley was chosen as Bruce Dickinson’s replacement in Maiden in 1994, the man has unlimited stage presence, he really got the audience going.

Another amazing thing is the scale of the gigs that the band have played in for this tour, there must have been less than a hundred people at 12 bar that night watching, and for £8 entry really got their money’s worth, this was an exciting and lively performance that made you wonder if the foundations of the 12 bar were strong enough to cope, I would recommend seeing Blaze if you can, as well as being an amazing artist he is a genuinely nice guy and finds the time in his busy schedule to talk to the fans, sign autographs (signing one in order to wish Matt a happy 18th ‘birfday’), etc.

I hope Lightning Strikes Twice and he returns to 12 bar in the near future.

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!