Metal Mayhem at The Hob.

     METAL     

   MAYHEM

The song that’s going round and round in my head is ‘Nobody’s Fault but Mine’ by Led Zeppelin. That’s appropriate and it's Heavy Metal – or it once was.

Maybe metal is Iron Maiden? (eek!)

What did I let myself in for?

I was bloated and blown up with pathetic old man's nostalgia, after days of listening to the music of the past. I needed to hear something new.

Ok, I’ve learnt my lesson, now.

First of all, I now have a problem with The HOB – they went and fixed their mist machine. That’s the thing that pumps out a fine mist that makes the light show look so effective – see?

 

 Looks good doesn’t it? No, actually, it doesn’t.

It means I can’t take pictures through the mist with my £11-99p Charity shop camera. I’ve had to hire a crack team of Serbian mercenaries to storm The HOB and, using some of the Semtex© I’d been saving up for something more significant, pay for them to put that machine out of action for good. It was either that or buy a better camera and that ain’t never going to happen.

Ok it did look quite nice, but really......

See what I mean? I really liked Ariyah – apart from anything else they were the only ones where I had the slightest idea of what they were about.

It was Metal mixed with Techno – a techno backing track behind hard, loud metal. I even got what they were trying to do and I didn’t mind when the recorded track kept failing – they were good enough without it.

Then the fog of war descended and my camera lost vision again.

I was luckier for ‘Eyes of Munity’......

 

....who came on next – really good playing but it’s a form of Metal that I just can’t cope with. Harsh vocals roared out, thrashing guitars. Little did I know that this was fairly mild (that's going to cause them trouble in the world of metal – sorry didn’t mean any harm).

 

Then the mist descended again, so here’s another light show (look at the old space cowboy photographing the light's he's just gone)

 

This is the vocalist from ‘Room swept White’

All I can say, is that as each band came on they outdid each other.


No photos of 'Mylas' or 'Crown Me King' because of the mist but in any case by this time I was getting punch drunk.


I couldn’t tell you what offshoot of metal they were playing but it was at the extreme end - real hardcore.

At least they’ll like me saying that.

Me? I've had to phone the Jazz Doctors – they are sending over a team to give me an emergency drip of Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver. It may be too late for me … but perhaps my experience can help those who follow.

Meanwhile, my ears weren’t actually bleeding when I left The Hob (earplugs) but it was a close run thing.

Neil Harris

(a don’t stop till you drop production)