Right then, catch-up on gigs for the first half of the year!
Early January was the aforementioned 'pagan festival' taking place at the Victoria warehouse in Manchester - this was a europe-wide touring show with five bands; Elevenking, Heidevolk, Tyr, Ensiferum and headlining
Alestorm, which is why I was going. I missed the start of the first band (was an early starting thing) but pretty much enjoyed all the (strange) support bands before Alestorm came on and did a full closing set.
Good day out that (especially since I went to a beer festival before heading to the concert, this explains why I missed the start
)
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Next up was a band that I saw a few times back in their (and perhaps my) heyday many years ago ;
Magnum at the Manchester Academy.
They are a bit of an old school rock band but sadly their songwriter and lead guitarist died last year, so this was labelled as a 'tribute' thing. As such they played mostly stuff I was familiar with (from 30+ years ago) and it was all pretty good indeed.
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I band I like
far too much than is healthy, is GloryHammer (for the uninitiated they are a spin-off from Alestorm, in that the main guy from Alestorm formed the band and played keyboards/wrote most of their earlier stuff - they are a lot more standalone these days though). Anyway I had got a ticket for their Manchester gig (see below) but felt that I might like to see them a couple of times on the tour and (again for the uninitiated, their thing is that the songs are silly power metal based around a fantasy-version of Scotland, and often Fife and prominently Dundee) their UK tour was starting off in Scotland - so my decision was made.
So at the end of January I trekked up North to see them in the stupidly small Church club (like 300 capacity!) in the mighty city of Dundee!
Support bands were notable too though - first up was
Fellowship (who I had listened to in the past)
(stage is so small you can't even see the whole band - the drum kit was shared between them and the next band but the drummer is barely visible for any of the bands!)
Then next up was a German band I'd never heard of;
Dominum. They turned out to be really good though - all zombie horror power metal and their front-man was really charismatic. Been listening to them quite a lot since and even got a ticket to a Manchester concert later this year that they are also the support for
So this is
GloryHammer in the tiny club;
The problem with the tiny club was unsurprisingly space though; the merch desk/queue was at the back of the small floor section and when the moshing got out of hand anyone standing who did not indulge in such (like old gits like me) was forced back into that and/or the sound desk.
So despite liking all the music a lot, was not the best 'experience' that night. Still very glad I did it as it did amuse me and I also had a week or so mooching around Scotland to make the trip into a little holiday too.
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A few days later then, the same show at Manchester Ritz, a much more ergonomic venue and a far pleasanter experience all round - just without the amusement of
GloryHammer singing about Unicorns invading the city the show was in that night!
Fellowship take 2;
Dominum zombies take 2;
Hoots! (and full stage setup)
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Another old band I was very into in my younger days was Marillion, their original lead singer split from them years ago and was doing a retirement tour, so later in February I saw
Fish at the Albert Hall in Manchester (where I'd seen PSB a few months before).
This was also a good show - quite poignant too as it was his 'farewell'.
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A band I encountered randomly a few years ago after hearing just one of their songs ('Holes') on an airplane of all places and then having to track down who they were, is
Mercury Rev and they were playing at the New Century Hall in Manchester in March.
That was cool too - they played 'Holes' so I was happy
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And then
Public Service Broadcasting were playing a few more dates (after the shows last October) so I nipped over to Liverpool on a Sunday night to catch them again (at the Olympia, a venue I'd never been to but was quite cool)
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Next up mid-April was
Ghost at the Arena (the original arena, not the new one) in Manchester - this was great, excellent stage show and it was the first date of their tour so everything was 'new'.
Also, interestingly they had banned phones (i.e. cameras) at the concert - in practice that meant you had to put your phone in a sealed pouch that you kept with you but only got unlocked as you left the venue or in an 'emergency'.
That was GREAT though - no sea of screens getting in the way of seeing everything.
But also no silly pics for me either - I can happily live with that though.
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I've seen the
Flaming Lips many times, and its always a joyous thing (even for an old cynic like myself). They were essentially carrying on the same show I had seen ~2 years ago, but were coming back to Manchester (at the same venue, the fab Apollo) so what else are you going to do?
And wonderful it was again too.
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Tangerine Dream are a band I used to listen to a lot, when revising stuff for school mainly - that long ago anyway! I'd seen them before, but again 30+ years ago - and all the people involved now are different to they were then. But this was very good too and at the new Aviva Studios in Manchester so able to check-off a new venue as well.
No guitars involved in this one though; keyboards for the trippy tunes and oddly a violinist.
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Making up for the lack of guitars in the previous concert, last night I saw
Iron Maiden, who have many guitarists, at the new arena (the Co-Op Live) in Manchester.
This was a bit of a '50 years' tour - they didn't play anything more recent than their 1992 album (which is after I stopped paying that much attention to them - Number of the Beast ('82) through Seventh Son ('88) is my Maiden-era really). This was fab and a pretty different show to that when I saw them only 2 years ago.
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So that's this year so far. Some stuff lined up for the rest of the year; Pumpkins, Architects, Sabaton, Ice Nine Kills, the mighty
Svalbard of course and randomly a Hollywood moviestar playing early R.E.M. covers with his pals (impulse buy
)
