KILBURNFLYER

The inaugural High Voltage Festival was great fun. Good layout and some great bands A few minor niggles - a few mates complained that the prog and metal stages were too close together and the metal interfered with the purity of the prog sound. Didn't matter to me as I was usually at the metal stage anyway. A few notables:

Saturday

Focus - only saw a few songs but a quite gentle remnder of former greatness

The Answer - great show as usual and a fantastic cover of an old Rose Tattoo song Rock n Roll Outlaw

Saxon - a relatively short but well delivered set - 747, Motorcycle Man, Pricess of the night and Wheels of Steel all got in there - not loud enough but you can's have it all.

Gary Moore - frankly a bit pants (dull set delivered in a half hearted way) and fuck me has he piled on the pounds. Line of the weekend delivered by a lovely lady we met at the Ibiza festival called Rebecca (can't rememebr surname but her boyfriend Graham and his mate Tony the T-Shirt fiend were all very nice) when Moore said "this song is empty rooms" "empty fridge more like" came Rebecca's retort. I almost choked on my beer.

Heaven and Hell tribute - a bit sad a R J-D was one of my favourite singers. Glenn Hughes and another guy who's name I cant remember were decent. The Younger guy being more powerful and would be a very good long term replacement if they wanted to carry on. Die Young, Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules and Neon Knights were all great.

ZZ Top - awesome set, awesome performance. These guys are just a magnificent live band. First saw the over 30 years ago and they still excite me. Jesus Just Left Chicago always a fave of mine.

Sunday

Wishbone Ash - only saw a few but nice to see the Turners back together

Lethargy - fucking superb - first saw these at HRH 2 and then at Camden Barfly and met them in Ibiza. Great bunch of lads and did extremely well - they attracted quite a lot of interest in spite of the fact they were up against Wishbone Ash and the Quireboys

UFO - terrible slow song to start with and it just got worse when the guitar kept cutting out. Best forgotten.

Joe Elliott - sorry bored the arse off me - fell asleep

Down - absolutely fucking superb in spite of the fact that I didn't know any of their songs. Very energetic and engaged with the audience - will be buying some of their material.

ELP - better not say what I really think or Nigel will not speak to me - just say not my thing.

KILBURNFLYER

The Answer at Dingwalls. Top show. very confident young band who know how to engege an audience. Sound was good and a totally stripped down performance. Really looking forward to seeing this lot again - suspect it will be in a much bigger venue

KILBURNFLYER

Motorhead and Saxon at Sheffield Academy - great show in a great venue - a long drive there and back in a day - was originally planning to stay over but has to get back for my flight to NYC to see AC/DC at Madison Square Garden. A fucking long way to go for a gig but well worth the effort - rock n roll train a good intro song and then into hell ain't a bad place to be. Off we went with a 90 minute show (could have been longer but they are getting on a bit now) back in black, thunderstruck, hells bells, let there be rock all included with highway to hell and for those about to rock as an encore. A solid performance and good clean sound with the new songs doing better than I expected - big jack was well received. Splendid in so many ways - looking forward to tonight. All in all very professional but not quite what they were. The Answer who supported were seriously good - at points they reminded me of the black crowes or zeppelin - have to go see them again.

Update: Thursday's gig was exactly the same - saw an east coast AC/DC tribute band (Overdose) at BB Kings who were great fun as an aftershow piss up.