Helsinki’s ’pain’ festival as I was told the name translates into, goes all the way back to 1998 and has seen a yearly growth in the number of attendees and also the quality of bands that performed on its stages. The 2011 edition (22 – 24 July) was the first one held in a new location, called Suvilahti, a former industrial area by the way it looks, with less vegetation but surrounded by factory buildings which had their advantages at times. The Finnish weather was incredibly friendly for the three days and except few minutes of rain, we were greeted by a lot of sunshine. My biggest positive surprise at this festival comes from the people, especially the employees/volunteers working as guards or serving drinks and foods...
Read MoreCategory Gig/Festival Reviews
The second high voltage festival took place on 23rd and 24th July 2011. The line-up was superb – some really top bands on the bill including Judas Priest, Slash, Thin Lizzy, Queensryche, Dream Theatre, Jethro Tull and many more.
The location for the festival was once again Victoria Park in London – a large park in Hackney with good transport links (they’d have been a lot better had LUL not decided to shut half the underground lines for the weekend).
The park gives plenty of space for the event, but does come with a major problem – its in a residential area, so the council imposes strict noise levels that are far lower than most similar event have to work with...
A few years ago, Thin Lizzy weren’t at the top of their game. The new lineup however, with Ricky Warwick as their frontman is back on form and today they make things look easy as they put in an excellent performance packed with classic hits including ”Jailbreak”, ”Whiskey in the jar”, ”The Boys are back in town” and ”Waiting for an alibi”.
For ”Dancing in the moonlight”, Michael Monroe joined Thin Lizzy on stage to accompany them on saxophone. Ricky Warwick is a superb frontman and while some old diehards will never accept any version of the band that doesnt include Phil Lynott, most fans are happy with the current lineup. A nice touch was dedicating one of the songs to Phil Lynott and Gary Moore – two former and deceased Thin Lizzy legends.
The large crowd certainly looked to enjoy the...
Thunder were probably one of the most eagerly anticipated bands on the Sunday at High Voltage, and the size of crowd they drew supported that. This was a rare chance to see them live since the band ”quit” two years ago.
The intro tape started (ACDC’s Thunderstruck) and the excitement built rapidly till they came on stage to a load of applause and cheers.
The set didnt get off to a good start – twice during the first song (Backstreet symphony), the sound from most of the instruments cut out completely, but singer Danny Bowes didn’t let minor details like that put him off and he carried on. Backstreet symphony was a great choice to start the set with – a definite crowd pleaser, but there were plenty more still to come.
Danny Bowes is an excellent frontman who gets the crowd clapping alon...
Read MoreLike Slash, Michael Schenker has played with several bands and also chooses to play a range of material, including songs from The Scorpions (Rock you like a hurricane & Another piece of meat) and UFO (Rock Bottom & Doctor Doctor).
For his set at High Voltage Michael Schenker has brought a few guests with him. His brother Rudolph Schenker takes a day off from the Scorpions to come and play on ”Rock you like a hurricane”, ”Hanging on” and ”Doctor Doctor”, UFO legend is wheeled out for ”Rock Bottom” and ”Doctor Doctor”, and Jeff Scott Soto comes on stage for Doctor Doctor. Pete Way seems like a shadow of his former self which is a shame.
Michael Schenker often hides at the back of the stage and plays while barely acknowledging the crowd, but today thankfully he’s obviously in a good mood an...
Read MoreKicking off with ”Living in the past” I was impressed by the sound – it was the clearest sound I’d heard all weekend. Either the prog stage had better sound than the other two stages all weekend or they’d got it right for Jethro Tull, but either way this was great news. ”Living in the past” is one of the few Jethro Tull songs I know so this was a great start to the set for me. The second track was another popular track – ”Thick as a brick”, and it was clear that many of the crowd knew all the words to it.
Jethro Tull have a huge amount of material to choose from with numerous albums spanning a career dating back over 40 years...
Black Country Communion are a fairly new group, but are a ”supergroup”- Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham & Derek Sherinian. This is a band that has a lot ot live up to based on the careers of the individual members. As a new band they’re at a disadvantage to bands like Thunder or Thin Lizzy who have plenty of crowd pleasing hits to include in their set. Black Country Communion only have two albums of material to work with.
The sound is definitely very 1970s Rock – the unmistakable vocals of Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple) certainly help give that 70’s feel but there’s more to it than that – its the overall feel of the combination of the music and the vocals.
The show is closed with a Joe Bonamassa song (The Ballad of John Henry) followed by the highlight of their set for most people...
Read MoreOK lets start off with the problem and get it out of the way….the sound volume was far too low. Its been said for every other band, but its especially true for Judas Priest even if they do seem a bit louder than the earlier bands. Judas Priest play music best listened to at face-meltingly loud volume when seeing them live – the subdued sound tonight really does depress the atmosphere.
Despite this, Judas Priest put on a fantastic show. The band, currently on their farewell ”Epitaph” tour (although many fans expect them to be back before too long) recently parted ways with long-time guitarist KK Downing, but his replacement, Richie Faulkner has more than stepped up to the mark and plays superbly.
The show started with Epitaph being displayed on the screens as Black Sabbath classic, War Pi...
Read MoreA few years ago, Thin Lizzy weren’t at the top of their game. The new lineup however, with Ricky Warwick as their frontman is back on form and today they make things look easy as they put in an excellent performance packed with classic hits including ”Jailbreak”, ”Whiskey in the jar”, ”The Boys are back in town” and ”Waiting for an alibi”. For ”Jailbreak”, Michael Monroe joined Thin Lizzy on stage to accompany them on saxophone. Ricky Warwick is a superb frontman and while some old diehards will never accept any version of the band that doesnt include Phil Lynott, most fans are happy with the current lineup. A nice touch was dedicating one of the songs to Phil Lynott and Gary Moore – two former (and deceased) Thin Lizzy legends.
The large crowd certainly looked to enjoy the set with ple...
On Saturday evening after Thin Lizzy it was the turn of the guitar legend that is Slash ! This is the man who just over 12 months ago pulled in a crowd at Download for his early afternoon slot that rivalled any of the headliners crowds. Today the crowd is far smaller – a decent size but not as big as I’d expected – possibly a sign of the poor turnout generally.
Slash’s choice of setlist was a short history of his career, including four tracks from his time with Guns’n’Roses (Nightrain, Rocket Queen, Sweet Child O’ Mine & Paradise City), three Slash’s snakepit songs (Been there lately, Mean Bone & Speed parade), one Velvet revolver song (Slither), and just two songs from his new album (Ghost & Doctor alibi)...
Read More