Old news for some, but as it’s not the kind of thing that happens every day, I thought it worthy of a mention. Yes, in yet another completely unexpected and pretty major turn up for the books, Cork’s metal faithful have found themselves with another one of thrash metal’s big four coming to Leeside. In the biggest Irish heavy metal news shocker (since the last one), Megadeth will play Cork this summer.
Just like Slayer in 2007, Dave and Co will hit the Marquee on June 14th. Tickets will set you back €39.50 and are available right now from the usual suspects.
Here’s hoping Aiken Promotions are enlightened enough to give this show the one support band that it’s completely crying out for - Gama Bomb. Do it!
Given the relatively short lifespan of Paddy Metal so far, I won’t be doing a round up of the year on this occasion. Hopefully by this time next year there’ll be enough Paddy Metal readers to do a little poll of what people thought rocked during the year.
What I will say is that it shouldn’t go unnoticed that it was another extraordinary year for Irish metal. Primordial continued to go from strength to strength and took Irish metal with them to some (actually nearly all) of the world’s biggest metal festivals. However the fact that three other Irish bands, Mourning Beloveth, Waylander and Gama Bomb all released new albums to world wide critical acclaim was a far more significant, yet less recognised development in the growth of our little scene. Here’s hoping 2009 is as good!
Before last night’s post it was a whole 12 days since I’d blogged. So what did I miss? Here’s some of it anyway.
Lordi squeezing themselves into Dublin’s Button Factory in February. Expect other Eurovision luminaries like Linda Martin and Johnny Logan to be in attendance… - Photo www.Lordi.fi
Great gig in Fibbers last night. Municipal Waste as expected destroyed. Fibbers is actually the perfect venue for a band like the Waste. No crowd barriers or overzealous security, small, compact, a bit smelly…. The atmosphere was absolutely killer.
Visceral Attack got things going and gave a great account of themselves in front of a sizable crowd that lapped it up. These guys have age on their side and will I’m sure, in time, give the likes of Gama Bomb and Mass Extinction, Ireland’s two current thrash metal kingpins, a run for their money.
Gama Bomb of course were also on the bill last night and hit the stage next. The lads have been touring their balls off around Europe and have really honed their live performance. This was the first time I’d seen them play so well to a crowd in Dublin. They were completely in command and it was quite clear that a sizable number in the crowd were there as much for them as for the headliners.
Iron Lung are a curious choice of touring partner for the Waste and on the face of it looked somewhat out of place amidst the thrash last night. With plenty of their own fans in the crowd however they delivered an enjoyable set, added to by the hilarious banter with the crowd and the unconventional stage set-up.
Municipal Waste in Dublin last night - making the crowd rip their faces off and throw them on the stage
Municipal Waste followed with exactly what was expected. A crushing, no nonsense short but sweet 45 minute onslaught of crossover thrash metal. The kids of course went nuts for it, displaying their appreciation with what must have been the biggest circle pit Fibbers has ever seen. The absence of the boogie boards didn’t dampen the atmosphere with plenty of conventional crowd surfing and stage diving adding to the crazyness. If you haven’t caught these guys live yet then make sure you do next time. Highly entertaining stuff!
As an aside; I took my Blackberry along again just to make sure that it is actually too crap to use for gig photography. It is (see photos above). My problem is my digital camera is too big to bring to a gig with crazy levels like this one. So I’m going to have to source something I can put in my pocket and get decent photos and videos with.
Just back from some travelling so here’s some shrapnel.
Opeth at Vicar St this week - photo Ryan Marron
Sweden’s Opeth played what was by all accounts a fantastic show, to what must have been its biggest ever Irish audience, at a sold out Vicar St on Tuesday night.
Guns N’ Roses are streaming Chinese Democracy in its entirety on their Myspace page
The success of Gama Bomb, which I might add is extremely well deserved, has probably ended up putting fellow Irish thrashers Mass Extinction in the shade. Think back two or three years. Remember their amazing set at D.O.D. 2006 when they played to the biggest crowed of the day, upstaging headliners Destruction, or the summer before that when they wiped the floor with Nuclear Assault in front of a packed house at The Village in Dublin? There was an enormous buzz about the band and a real sense of excitement around what they could conceivably achieve. However, while the recent resurgence in interest in thrash metal has sent labels scrambling to sign-up anything in runner boots, Mass Extinction are still somewhat bizarrely, without a label. This despite two excellent demos and the kind of fan base that even some signed acts would be envious of.
Mass Extinction - T-Shirt sleeves not included.
For a band that rose so quickly it must certainly have seemed like things had drawn to a halt during 2008. Without a label to market the band outside of the Irish underground, growing the fan base further was going to be quite challenging. Playing the same underground shows again and again would do as much to cause existing fans to tire of the band as it would to lure in new ones. Today’s news that Mass Extinction has landed two support slots at Lamb of God’s Irish shows in February 2009 will certainly have put a smile back on their faces. Lamb of God are a big ticket metal act, they are essentially mainstream, on Sony Epic/Roadrunner and touring with Metallica this year. They’ve also got an enormous media profile, but most importantly the kids are down with it and will be at both gigs in their droves. We’ll actually they won’t, as it happens, it seems the gigs are over 18’s. But what I’m referring to here is the masses that read Metal Hammer, buy their metal in HMV, their tickets on Ticketmaster and wouldn’t ordinarily look sideways at an underground gig.
Mass Extinction – The photography potential of an abandoned building site proves that there may well be a silver lining to the collapse of the construction sector in Ireland.
Don’t get me wrong, as great as this news is, I’m not inferring that it’s a career defining development for the band or anything. But if they use it well it could get them back on track in terms of growing their Irish fan base and making themselves look sexy to labels, big promoters, good-looking girls etc At the very least, if they manage to do as they’ve done in the past, then not only will they blow Lamb of God off the stage but they’ll refuse to let any of the crowd leave without buying a CD and that’s the kind of traction they just haven’t had for quite some time now.
If you weren’t going to these gigs then this is a good reason to change your mind.
Lamb of God and Mass Extinction play Mandela Hall, Belfast on February 8th and The Academy, Dublin on February 9th, 2009.
Check-out Mass Extinction in some You Tube action.
