Well, hello again! It’s been a while I know. "And what’s this?" I hear you cry, "a gig review?" Does this mean that I actually go out and not sit in my basement watching bad B-movies, munching on pork rinds and scratching myself? Well yes actually I do, but I also go out sometimes!
I asked my very good friend The Gobmeister whether, instead of a film review, this time would he like a gig review? He said "Do it!" So that’s why I’m writing this.
Well it's Monday 12th June and I have just got home from the "Download Festival" in Donnington Park, where the line up was mainly heavy metal bands. The two that I was most looking forward to were Metallica and Guns'n'Roses.
I'll start with Metallica (because they were on the Saturday and "Guns..." were on the Sunday). Where do I start? Maybe with some interesting facts: It’s the 20th anniversary of the MASTER OF PUPPETS album, and also it’s the 20th anniversary of the death of their original bass guitarist Cliff Burton, who tragically died when their tour bus crashed. So it was a sort of tribute to him that they performed the whole album in memory of Cliff, which was really quite moving. The only thing that let them down was the fact that we had aeroplanes going over the stage drowning the sound, and the fact that the band are now starting to look their age (i.e. James Hetfield with a grey beard and a bald patch) (post your own Gobmeister joke here).
Highlight tracks included ENTER THE SANDMAN, FUEL, ONE, and NOTHING ELSE MATTERS. All these and more (wonder if I could get a job with Time Life ???). Also they had a stunning pyrotechnics display which included 4 , 20 foot jets of flame and a video display so eye-popping that Rob's eyesight might have been fixed. Well worth watching, and glad I did.
NOW on to Guns'n'Roses, a band with few of the original members left (Slash unlikely to come back by the way) but the main thing is that Axl Rose is still the outrageous front man - now sporting a ginger goatee beard and cornrow hair! The new guitarist is from a band called Nine Inch Nails. There was controversy whether they would turn up at all, because on the Wednesday Axl walked off stage halfway through a gig, sending the rumour mill and the hype machine into overdrive. They were due to start at 8:15 on Sunday if they turned up, and lo and behold they did. Not only that, but they started early with a thunderously great version of WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE, but technical problems started to show as Axl’s mic went down and the bass player nearly went home after being hit in the face with a plastic bottle.
Then something happened that I didn’t expect Mr IZZY STRADLIN wandered on stage (the original rhythm guitarist). Some fans weren’t pleased when the guitarists did an instrumental version of Christina Aguelara's BEAUTIFUL, which I thought was really good. Top tunes of the night were NIGHT TRAIN, SWEET CHILD O' MINE, NOVEMBER RAIN and PARADISE CITY which had Axl bombing from one side of the stage to the other to a hail of applause. Undoubtedly the best gig I have ever been to. Oh and there’s more. We were exclusively treated to 3 new tracks from the CHINESE DEMOCRACY album yet to be recorded. It's been 12 years since G’n’R toured this country. I hope they don’t leave it so long next time!