After completely forgetting about Gama Bomb’s gig in Dublin on Friday night (still kicking myself) I made sure I got to The Village for Glyder’s album launch show last night. For a band that’s got such a lot right recently I won’t kick them too much over a few things they got wrong in staging last night’s gig.

I’ll keep it to one sentence and simply say that the venue was too big, start too early and playing the entire new album, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow from start to finish without even a support act to warm the crowd up, just didn’t work. Thankfully the second half of the show was excellent with the band playing tracks from their first two albums to a very enthusiastic audience before being very loudly beckoned back for a number of encores.

This band are made for the big stage (and big audiences) and its only a matter of time before that comes. At just two listens so far the jury is still out on how the new album stacks up to the other two, but if you are a hard rock fan and don’t have at least one of them then you are missing out. Check out what the band’s guitarist Bat Kinane had to say in an interview in The Ticket on the new album, recognition in Ireland and how the band is faring abroad.

After dazzling a sold-out Academy in Dublin on Wednesday night with the kind of aerial acrobatics that would make a kangaroo sick, Airbourne were kept well and truly on the ground in Dublin for the rest of the week. The volcanic ash clouds that closed airports and airspace across Europe meant that the aussies had to reschedule the remaining two dates of their European tour, which had been due to finish tonight in Barcelona.

Stranded in Dublin (and reportedly still here) the four lads were spotted getting tattoos and walking around the Temple Bar area. I heard this from several people (ok so some of them were intoxicated at the time).

To see more excellent photos from the Academy show please visit Damien James O’Farrell’s photostream on Flickr here and here.

On Easter Sunday last, myself and about 20 others made the journey from Dublin to Limerick for the Siege of Limerick All Dayer. What a great day it was; metal, craic and chips from Donkey Fords… Here are some photos:

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I promised a few people I’d do a little gig report on the W.A.S.P. show in Dublin last month. That however was before my month went a little crazy with work and a few other things and it didn’t get done. Anyway, better late than never and my apologies to those waiting for it.

Put simply, if you missed this then you are probably still kicking yourself pretty hard. The buzz around this show has been quite immense with the term ‘gig of the year’ being bandied about the auld interweb quite a bit. While I can’t quite tag it that, it was indeed one hell of a show and one that will be talked about for some time to come.

W.A.S.P. have been here a number of times in recent years and the band’s last show, in the same venue, all be it by default (they had been booked to play Tripod but construction work didn’t finish on time) was pretty memorable too. The novelty of seeing a band of W.A.S.P.’s stature in such a small venue wasn’t lost on those who turned up that night despite the late rescheduling.

This time round the sell-out crowed wedged into the Button Factory were really up for it. The fact that it was a weekend night really added to the buzz for many in attendance, with a very busy bar evident throughout the night. Alas, I was to witness the entire show completely stone cold sober and that might be why I won’t go as far as calling it gig of the year. But it was certainly special. You can often call these occasions by the type people who show up and they really came out of the woodwork for W.A.S.P. with this one. There was a healthy mix of young, old (you know what I mean), Irish and foreign nationalities in attendance with plenty of members of some of the bigger Irish metal bands also knocking around.

The set-list impressed with the more recent material standing well beside the hits of old. Two songs from Dominator might otherwise have seemed a bit much, but gelled well in the set-list on this occasion. Blackie led the band in what was certainly the best performance I’ve seen from W.A.S.P over the past half a decade and even had a little bit of banter with the crowd while he was at it.

If I recall correctly (a month later) the set-list was along these lines:

On Your Knees
The Real Me
L.O.V.E. Machine
Crazy
Babylons Burning – New
Wild Child
Hellion/I Dont Need No Doctor/Scream Until You Like It
Arena of Pleasure
Chainsaw Charlie
The Idol
Take Me Up – New
I Wanna Be Somebody
Heavens Hung In Black
Blind In Texas

Thanks to Aled Thomas for the photos.

Yep – as it says in the headline. I went along to see Anvil! The Story of Anvil, last night and along with the rest of the audience was treated to a surprise performance by the band themselves after the film ended. They played three songs after an equipment problem (typical Anvil bad luck) threatened to ruin things and conducted a audience Q&A. Probably the first and last time anyone will see a metal band play in Cineworld which made it all the more special- very rock n roll.

I was thinking afterwards that it’s pretty sad that at least half of what was a full cinema last night probably won’t ever see a metal band live again, unless some mainstream event like the film festival or a major record label gives them occasion to. This is despite every single one of them clearly having a great time last night. So unfortunately that’s the kind of thing that means there’ll be plenty more Anvils on the go long after Lips and Robb finally call it a day.

As for the film itself, it’s fantastic and completely pisses all over some of the more recently celebrated documentaries on the genre e.g. Some Kind of Monster. Go see it or get it on DVD as soon as you can.

Yep! They rocked the gaff apparently.

Judas Priest were fantastic last night. It was my third time seeing them and I have to admit my first stone cold sober. The past two times I wasn’t entirely with it shall we say but did fail somewhat to feel the vibe from them. In fact I recall several conversations with people where I’ve been quite critical of Halford’s on stage presence.

Tonight however they were truly great. Halford’s vocals and movement on stage certainly isn’t what it was, but the show was a real throw back to kind of thing one might have seen from them in their 80s heyday – well not quite but as close as you’ll get form them these days. They had it all with the exception of solos really, a big drum-riser, Halford riding onto the stage on a motorbike, dueling guitars, wardrobe changes, KK Downing in leather and of course some of the greatest metal songs ever written. The highlights for me were ‘Electric Eye’, ‘Painkiller’ and the entire encore which was made up of ‘Hell Bent For Leather’, ‘The Green Manalishi’ and the song I still have in my head ‘You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.

First time in the new O2. Seems ok, although not completely fantastic. The sound was a bit of a let down, however I understand that the venue has no actual PA and the bands bring everything with them. Given that and the fact that it was the first night of the tour I guess it could be down to teething problems, but certainly more of an issue for band and crew more than the venue from what I can gather.

Briefly: I went along to see Shining’s Dublin show last night in Fibbers. I’ve got two of their albums which I really like and the gig fell nicely, coming just after pay day.

There is a certain air of notoriety around the band and the antics of singer ‘Niklas Kvarforth‘ which also added to the show’s appeal. I’ve a feeling there were plenty of people there last night who went along as a result of the ‘I wonder what he’ll do next?’ factor and it was interesting to learn that he’d headbutted a member of the audience at the start of the band’s show in Cork the previous night.

It was quite clear however that the band’s music was enough of a draw on its own and a good sound in the venue made for an impressive first live encounter with the Swedes. There was a nice vibe about the place too. Bands like Shining often attract, shall we say, similarly minded individuals, but the crowd last night were quite well behaved. I’m going to endeavor to pick up the rest of their back catalogue over the coming months and hopefully the next time they come back I’ll know more of the material.

As an aside Geasa were also on very good form last night. It’s the first time I’ve seen them since the departure of Steve Maher and I really enjoyed what seemed like a pretty diverse set.

It’s been a whole week since I’ve blogged. Which is pretty poor – I certainly hope it’s a minor blip and consistency can return going forward. The truth is it’s been a bit of a crazy week.

So what have I been up to?

We’ll first of all, I was in Germany last weekend, to attend the Winternoise Festival in Osnabrück. It turned into a pretty good session. Both Mael Mordha and Waylander went down well with a crowd of about 400, which seemed to be well short of the numbers expected. I guess the economy is messing with gig numbers allover Europe now.

I’d booked my flight at a different time to the Mael Mordha lads so I ended up having time to burn around Dusseldorf on the Sunday. Despite its industrial creds its actually a pretty cool city. I wasn’t entirely impressed initially as what I assumed to be the city centre was a rather bland upmarket strip known as the ‘Königsallee’. I wandered up and down a few times before being curious enough to cross the river which turned out to be an excellent move as I ended up in what I believe was the Rhine Embankment Promenade and really cool old town area of the city. The place was hopping on what was a cold but sunny winter afternoon. I found a great little rock bar and sat outside drinking beer and listening to the likes of Dio and Whitesnake for the afternoon until it was time to head for my flight.Nice!

While over there I did of course miss Primordial at the Button Factory which by all accounts was another fantastic evening with another sell-out attendance.

So after all that and without the benefit of the weekend to catch-up on things, I landed into another really busy week in work with a lot of late nights. Hence – no time for blogging.