Dio, Girlschool, Birmingham Academy 27th May 2008

...or, The March of The Doom Droids.

As SJW has pointed out in his post, we weren't allowed to take his camera into the gig with us, and I'd not taken mine because it's just one more thing to lose really, isn't it (oh yeah and it's broken too), so any and all photos taken on this particular day are from the journey there and the March of The Doom Droids on the way back.

There was no getting lost or 45-minute phone calls for us this time; I stayed (relatively) sober because we'd caned it a bit the night before (the look on Skum's hangover-riddled face when I came out of the shop with a crate of lager was priceless, I think his words were "Patchie...how could you?" haha) and I was on map-reading duties, so we arrived in no time, navigating a seemingly improbable one way system as only true metal vagabonds with a gig to go to can.
The three hour, spiral-shaped journey around the centre of Birmingham the week before with Anna directing us along probably helped as well.
We arrived, joined the massive queue and sank a few cans, and arrived just in time to pick up a shirt, get some more beers, and watch Girlschool's set.
For those of you not in the know, Girschool are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year (making them as old as yours truly) and play good ol' British biker rock/metal. They were spot on, so much so that afterwards I went looking for their merch to get hold of a the CD with Ronnie James Dio and Tony Iommi collaborating with them, but there was none to be found. It'll probably lose me a few kvlt points but fuck it, Girlschool are top notch, squire.
Skum has a setlist in his post for this show; Opening with Holy Diver this was an excellent selection of tracks from Dio, even if there were no Sabbath songs included alongside the Dio and Rainbow tracks, maybe this is another one of Ozzy's (Iron Maiden hating) wife's moves? Anyway, the set was good, Ronnie James got a bit pissed off with Simon Wright's (ex-AC/DC) drumming at the end of (I think) Rainbow in the Dark - turning to him and demanding to know (over the PA) "Are you fucking deaf?", much to the amusement of Thee Claw. Wright more than made up for this with a cracking drum solo, accompanied in part by Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture.
Ending the show with a triple treat of Long Live Rock And Roll, The Last in Line and We Rock, this was truly a night to remember.

Oh, and we also saw an erstwhile ex-Iron Maiden vocalist hiding under a huge skull print bandana at the bar.
As for The March of The Doom Droids...you'll just have to wait to see what that was all about!

Link: Girlschool
Link: Dio

Late Night Antics On The Road Home After Dio

Roadside fun with Thee Claw Boys. You really don't need to know what that was in those buckets.

We weren't allowed to take the big camera into the DIO concert tonight (my fault for not calling the venue in advance and arranging a photo pass). Anyway, it was an awesome show, the support band were GIRLSCHOOL - or, as SKUM has rechristened them, MILFschool. They were outstanding. And DIO never let us down... You know, I think I even saw R.J.D. throw a claw at one point instead of his trademark devil horns. Musta been a mistake!


Also, tonight was the 30th concert of the 2008 CLAW ON TOUR. That's 30 gigs, including 4 all-day events (each being counted for 1 concert apiece even though they could notch up about 30 more bands between them if you wanted to be picky), and we're only just gettin started. Bring on Twickenham!

We still owe you a review and some photos from the RAVENS CREED gig over in Leeds from yesterday. Mark my words, that band is going to be legendary.

The other day was the day

I know I'm a little bit late with this but whatever, I've been enjoying the sun and sleeping in the dark in work.

The other night we went to Birmingham, England's Second City, to check out Today Is The Day on their latest tour, and although I'm going to do a little review in a bit, I'm sure that I won't be saying too much other than what SJW has already said in his post, other than voicing my opinions.
I'll fill you in a bit on the travelling and stuff though.

We left Liverpool around 3ish, and travelled down the motorway listening to Saxon and Iron Maiden, drinking cold cans of beer that had been purchased just before we left.
Well, when I say we, me and Skum were, I felt a bit sly on SJW cos he had to drive.
We swung into a service station on the way to pick up some porn; for some reason we can't travel anywhere without buying some to laugh at in the car, and plus the fact it's always amusing when you have to get served with a mucky book by a young girl.

About 6 miles outside Birmingham, Ste noticed that the police were tailing us. Does police have a capital p? I'm not giving them one anyway. Just as we went to turn off the motorway they turned on the flashing lights and pulled us over.
For some reason, laughing hysterically (probably because we were a bit smashed by now), Skum and I started trying to hide the porn under the seats; so obviously when the police came and opened the door they wanted to know what we were hiding.
"Just this filth mate" we said.
"That's alright, you can read....Naughty Neighbours you know",
After all, three lads from Liverpool (the rear of Thee Clawmobile makes it perfectly obvious where we have travelled from) all dressed in black and wearing sunglasses, drinking lager and listening to loud music, well we were asking to be pulled over weren't we?
Anyway, they went off and checked our names on their little computer, got shocked that we were clean (not as shocked as I was) and put their lights back on and fucked off quickly, like there was something infinitely more interesting happening a few miles down the motorway.

Right then, off into Birmingham it is.
For some reason, most of the cities in England now all have one-way road systems in place in the centre, which is probably awesome for everyone who lives there but is really shit for people from another city trying to get through it without directions.
By this time, Skum and I were well oiled, and after about the four millionth time going around the chinese pagoda roundabout we decided to swallow our pride and ask a policewoman for directions, but she just confused matters even more. I think she did anyway, me and Skum were too busy pissing about to really take any notice. I think SJW was ready to explode at this point. So, we went off again, back around the pagoda, and we spotted a "Rock and Roll Cocktail Bar", so Ste parked up and sent an already drunk Skum and Patchie in to ask for directions.
This was a bad idea.
I bet you can't guess what happened.
That's right, we walked in, and instead of asking for directions, we bought two pints of Lager and started wondering if they had Appetite for Destruction in the jukebox.
I'd like to take this moment to apologise to Ste, who obviously has the patience of a saint, and I like to think that I made up for it by phoning my girlfriend and having her call up Google Maps on the PC and give us directions on speakerphone.

So we arrived at the venue, and sat outside talking to the lads from Complete Failure, then went in and spoke to Steve Austin, and then watched three of the four bands who were playing, as we'd already missed ???? due to getting lost.
If you want a proper review, check out Ste's post, but here's my opinions:
Complete Failure were awesome Grindcore-ish noise with an amazing drummer. Sort of Nasum/Pig Destroyer and even TITD-ish, got to check out some of their stuff now and make it mine.
Jucifer were not my thing at all. I'd heard people saying that they had been to earlier dates on this tour and that Jucifer were better than TITD, sorry but I just don't see it. During the set I went outside to get an update on the Champion's League final in the football over the phone, it was a penalty shootout you see.
Today Is The Day - Good mix of stuff from the lads here; Complete Failure's drummer was helping them out and it was an intense, sweaty, fucking dark show. The lads put everything they had into this performance, just a shame hardly anyone turned up for it.
Finishing with an encore that started off with a bit of their cover of Wicked Game... I felt privileged to have been there, even if it did take three hours of making someone drive round a Chinese Pagoda and almost making the veins in his neck explode to get there.

Afterwards we went outside with Joe from Complete Failure and annoyed the emos who had been to the show next door, laughing at their hair and bumming cigarettes off them.

Today Is The Day @ Birmingham Academy, 21st May 2008

A couple days ago we took a short 200 mile round-trip journey to Birmingham to check out TODAY IS THE DAY & support on their current (Summer 2008) "Axis Of Eden" European Tour. They're in Europe until the 1st day of July, between here and then still they have another 40+ gigs to get through... and if every single one of them is played with the same levels of energy that they threw out at the crowd at the Birmingham Academy, those boys (and girl) are going to be some of the fittest people out there on tour this year.


The AXIS OF EDEN tour has 4 bands on the bill: The first band is called ???? ("4 Question Marks"), followed by COMPLETE FAILURE, with JUCIFER on second-to-last right before TODAY IS THE DAY take to the stage and spend an hour shredding their way through an extensive back catalog.

We (PATCHIE, SKUM & myself) had real trouble locating the venue for this show, even though we've been along to Brum several times in the past year. This was our first time at the Academy, although we're gonna be back there next week to see DIO. Birmingham is, like most city centres in England, a complete nightmare to drive around. It's all one way streets and dual carriageways! And what's more, my two traveling companions spent the entire journey down the M6 motorway listening to SAXON on the stereo, drinking Carlsberg and reading porno mags. Generally they were doing pretty much everything that I wanted to be doing! And they were doing it in true CLAW style... disgracefully! So by the time we arrived in Sabbath City I was pretty much left on my own to get us to the gig, I went around in circles for about 3 frustratingly long hours. It took a 45-minute directional phone call to finally get us there in the end. Oh yeah, we got pulled over by the cops on the way too.. Fucking pigs.

Once we arrived at the Birmingham Academy ???? had already played through their whole set, so we totally missed the opportunity to check them out. We got to the venue to find 2 of the guys from COMPLETE FAILURE - Joe and Eric - outside having a smoke, we spent 5 minutes there talking with them before we headed in to the bar.

Once inside SKUM made a bee-line straight across to Today Is The Day's front man, the one and only STEVE AUSTIN. He was looking lean and mean and oh-so psyched ahead of the show. You could see it in his eyes, he was ready to do something crazy! But he was the nicest guy on the night and spent some time talking with us and thanked us for making the journey. What a guy!

So, to the gig. Here's a little about each of the bands that we caught (sorry to the 4 QUESTION MARKS guys).

COMPLETE FAILURE

Complete Failure are Grindcore noise from Pittsburgh. I'd never heard em before, but I sure will be hearing a lot of them in the future. They were great stuff, playing on this tour as a 3-piece (the guys mentioned in between songs that their bassist couldn't make the tour because of a broken arm). This is their 1st European tour and they look well into the whole thing. I couldn't tell you the names of any of their songs, but I don't think that really matters to the guys in the band. You know, I wish I'd grabbed myself one of their t-shirts now. Dammit.

JUCIFER

Man & wife combo "Amber Valentine & Edgar Livengood" are the gang-of-two who come together to make up JUCIFER. A lot of the crowd were here to see them, you could tell by the general reaction when their set began. I had never heard anything of the band before so I wasn't sure what to make of them. I still am not sure! They played loud and very melodic, but heavy-as-hell in some part, which is saying a lot considering that it's just one guitar and a set of drums. They reminded me of BLACK COBRA in that respect. I really dig Ed's trapper's hat that he wore throughout the set.

TODAY IS THE DAY

You can just tell that Steve Austin loves his band and he gives all in performance for a TODAY IS THE DAY show. This wasn't the usual TITD line-up however, Mike (drummer from COMPLETE FAILURE) is filling in for them during this tour. I spoke to him after the show, he is gonna be doing drums for both bands for all the dates on this tour. Man, that's a job right there. Let's hope he doesn't get fatigued before the tour is over. TITD tore through songs from most of their albums, none stop riff worship all the while. Austin had a couple of "solo" songs on stage with no backing, just a microphone while he curled up into a fetal position and sang. Almost all of the original sample intros were in place for each tune thanks to an on-stage laptop (the 4th member of the band!). It was a joy watching Austin & co abuse the facility and scream until the veins were popping out of their necks. No holds barred performance = WIN.

THE CROWD
Not too many showed up to this show. Well, maybe 80 people were there watching. We spotted Dave from ANAAL NATHRAKH there, we caught up with the guys from CHARGER there too. I kind of expected to see more people, lots more, we even thought that it might have been a sell-out show. Far from it. It was the same for BRUTAL TRUTH when they played in Sheffield earlier this year, it was even worse when LESBIAN played Manchester in April. All of these great bands are making the effort to come over to Europe from the States and very few people who claim to be into their music are bothering to get off the backsides to support them.

PEOPLE OF ENGLAND NOTE: Bands aren't stupid, they will not bother coming back to see you if you don't bother to go and see them.

Down, Manchester Academy, 12th April

Here are some of the "best turned out" pics off my phone from Down. Great gig, quite an improvement on the last time they played, no boring rants between songs this time, the new songs sound really good live, Man Of The Match goes to Pepper Keenan!!!

Black Cobra / Saviours / The Sword

Another week, another gig for you all to share in with us.
Last night Thee Claw travelled across to Manchester to check out a triple bill of Black Cobra, Saviours, and The Sword, at the Manchester Academy.


Opening the show last night were Black Cobra, a two-piece group from LA, playing sludge type metal with doomy overtones, sort of like a two-piece High on Fire. Actually that was a shit comparison but it's the best one I can come with right now being as lazy as I am.
For a two piece they sounded immense, huge riffs and thundering drums.
They were great though, just guitar, drums and vocals, sounding as beefy as most four piece bands out there. Check out their Feather and Stone EP.


Next up were Saviours, from Oakland, California, a four-piece band, with a twin guitar attack that, for some reason, had Thee Claw thinking of Thin Lizzy, which is never a bad thing.
Catchy riffs and doomy vocals, and as I say the whole Thin Lizzy/biker vibe going on.

Really good stuff from these guys, they have a good few LPs available, well worth checking out.

Headlining were The Sword, whose LP "Age of Winters" has been getting a lot of play at Claw Towers.

They drew quite a few songs off this and their upcoming LP "Gods of the Earth" (which some naughty internet pirates have been listening to since January, or so I am told), the crowd were well into them but for me, Saviours were the band of the night.
The Sword finished off with a great one-two of Faith No More's "Surprise! You're Dead!" and their own "Freya", which everyone was very happy with.


Their new LP is out this months I believe, well worth getting hold of, and I'll be looking out for them touring with that one.

We had a great night out afterwards too, in Jilly's Rockworld listening to classic rock.
Hocus Pocus by Focus anyone?


Links:
Black Cobra (Myspace)
Saviours (Myspace)
The Sword (Myspace)

As a side note, this is Thee Claw's 16th show this year; it was the 23rd of June last year before we reached that particular milestone. It's shaping up to be a great year.

Conflict, and Patchie's high Horse.

UK anarcho punk legends Conflict are playing at Liverpool academy on September 11th this year, and it is £12.50 a ticket.
What an outrage, I hope this money is going to a fucking good cause.
I'm so disgusted I'm going to write to the lead singer of Echo and the Bunnymen.

Turisas, Liverpool, 5th March 2008

Bit of a mad review here guys; Wednesday I was working until 9.30pm, and earlier on in the evening SJW phoned me to tell me that Turisas were playing at the Liverpool Academy (NotI supporting Stiff Little Fingers as the picture above suggests, but playing in a different part of the building) and did I fancy it?
I'd not heard them before, and nothing could have really prepared me for it!
THey are basically a sort of power metal type band, dressed in viking style outfits, with a fiddle player and a seventeen year old girl on the squeezebox.
No really.
They wear battle paint and stuff; I've never seen anything like it, but I enjoyed it immensely.
It was completely full in there, all the crowd were really enjoying themselves.
Some of them had taken the spirit of the night to heart and come dressed in full battle regalia and war paint, waving battle axes, swords and staffs in the air!
Capes were the order of the day, I saw one cape with an embroidered Mjolnir design on the back.

Great fun, but as it was so busy in there we couldn't get any decent photos, so here's a clip of the gig I found on YouTube:

Misfits @ Manchester Academy - 29 Sept 2007

Went to Manchester last night to see The Misfits.

I have never seen the 'fits before, although they are one of the 1st bands that I got into as a teen. I was a Queen fan from about the age of 11 or 12, then got into loads of different rock and metal (and other dubious stuff that I prefer not to mention right now) and then finally got into The Misfits when I was about 17 (I'm 33 now). I remember finding out about them quite by accident and all on my own - nobody else that I hung round with was into them, and that was kind of part of what made them so cool. Being into The misfits on your own pretty much makes you a misfit, that's what I liked about them.

Tonight's gig was filled to the brim with people of all ages and walks of life, all brought together under one roof through their love for this band. Unfortunately though, today's Misfits are not the same band that I got into all that time ago - it's almost as though the current incarnation is a manufactured money making version of them; a product that has been put together especially to sell t-shirts, toys and other "scarified" accessories (at inflated prices) with the Misfits logo plastered all over them. Let's be quite clear, this is not the same band that I remember. But they did play a lot of the old songs, and they played them very, very well.

I can't remember even half of tonight's setlist but it started off like something from a teenage dream: all of the stuff that I used to listen to on a walkman on a constant loop, all played flawlessly with precision and in the horrified Misfits style. They played it all so fast and with hardly and gaps between the songs too, it was song after song of my boyhood favourites. Halloween, I Turned Into A Martian, Astro Zombies, Vampira, Ghoul's Night Out, Green Hell, Some Kinda Hate, Skulls... all the old horror punk classics. They even threw in a couple of Black Flag songs too.

The Manchester crowd was pretty up for it too, there was a decent pit and I made sure to be right there in the thick of it, screaming out the lyrics at the top of my lungs. I noticed, as soon as a song would start the pit would go berserk for about 30 seconds, then it would suddenly start slowing down - all the young lads weren't able to keep the momentum going and all the older guys didn't have the stamina and were out of breath after too long. But since Misfits songs are only about 90 seconds long anyway, it didn't really matter! Every 2 minutes another song popped up and the pit whirred back into a frenzy for a short burst before changing down a few gears ready for the next tune to kick in. All the while there was me, running around like a sweaty bald lunatic, hugging punks and screaming about zombies and aliens. Awesome stuff.

Then, half way through the set, the band stopped playing the old stuff and started playing the new Misfits material.

Let me take a moment to explain about the "new stuff". You see, The Misfits originally got together in 1977 and split up on Halloween of 1983, that was the end of the classic line up. But in 1997 "The Misfits" released a new album, written by a new line-up of band members. Only the bass player from the original line up is now in the band and he never wrote any of the classic songs. Now - I have never seen the "new" Misfits as being authentic, to me they're a very good cover band, but nothing more. I've never listened to the new material in anything more than a passing way, never wanted to listen to it either. It's quite embarrassing, quite frankly. If you ask me that is - others would contest my opinion on that.

I appreciate that, in their new incarnation, The Misfits are now more popular than ever (not always a good thing) and the new material has helped to revive them and as a result they have toured and release new material every few years. What we have now is what I would call "The New Misfits", a merchandising product. The band I saw tonight have nothing new to offer, they're a nostalgia act raking in money playing songs from a long-dead punk band. This is the main reason that I have never been to see them live before tonight, the new line-up has always been a bit of a joke band to me. But then, I am biased because I had such a good time listening to The Misfits when I was as a kid.

The second half of tonight's show, for me, was a case of standing at the side and watching a tribute band play songs inspired by a classic punk rock act. Nothing more than that. I also was quite bemused with the antics out of the pit when the new material was played! They mainly ran about slapping each other, or danced on the spot in an "epileptic fit" kind of way. I can't rightly say what the pit looked like for the 1st half of the show (because I was in it), but I certainly hope it didn't look like the mass of epileptic seizures that I witnessed during the 2nd half of the set. It was like watching people trying to create a pit atmosphere, but had no idea on how to achieve it. Maybe it was all of the "new" Misfits fans trying their best to "mosh" or soemthing; a lot of the "old" Misfits fans had walked to the sides of the hall during the new songs. It was a huge pit though, even bigger for the newer songs than the old ones! Not knowing (or enjoying watching) any of the new songs being performed kinda sucked the wind out of my proverbial sails and I couldn't get back into the swing of things when they played a few more of the old tunes for an encore. They played We Are 138 as an encore too - my favourite 'fits tune.

All in all I really enjoyed seeing the Misfits at long last, although it would have been a much better show (in my opinion) if they'd just stuck with the original material and not bothered with any of the "new" stuff. But then, I suppose they aren't gigging for the sake of it and those lunch boxes won't sell themselves now will they. Also you could see that fans of the new Misfits material really did seem to love all that new stuff, in their emo kind of way. Bring your brain medicine with you next time lads.

(PS - I think that I did quite well writing all of that out without mentioning Danzig even once. Until now.)