Concert Reviews

The Station, Cannock What an awesome night that was. Due to a cancellation a last-minute support act stepped in to warm up the crowd before the headliner. The acoustic set by THIRD ANGLE managed that only partially. Many a Nirvana cover were performed, and the vocalist truly has an amazing voice but the sparse interpretations of the songs by just him on his guitar and a bassist lacked the ‘oomph’ to carry it through. It was still entertaining, Not long afterwards Rammlied, the Rammstein tribute act, came on stage and rocked hard, industrial and ‘German’. There is truly something weird about listening to a fellow German, barking songs and rolling R’s in German, reminiscing of the harsh past Germany has had with its fair share of mental and somewhat insane leaders. The show was superb and the songs were amazing and very well received. Rammlied raised the roof with hard hitting tunes and a lot of humour and they were simply amazing.

This was my first ever pantomime experience and I didn’t know what to expect – I certainly wasn’t expecting a truly magical, ultra-funny and simply awesome evening. The story of Dick Whittington is aged old and Timothy Roberts as Dick was truly superb, which is true for all performers in this production. Ex – ‘East Enders’ star Mark Homer played King Rat both menacing as well as relatable and the audience loved to hate him. The entire evening was full of wit and lough out loud humour . Funniest of all was Keith De Winter in his role as Dame Sarah the cook. He was a puppeteer in the last 2 Star Wars™ movies and he was hilarious all throughout the pantomime. From the dancers to the actors to the two live musicians this performance was a triumph and I recommend for anyone to see it. xxxxx - highly recommendable

Best night out ever – it was surprising to see that the bands weren’t drawing a bigger crowd but both bands were absolutely amazing. Support act ‘the rebel dead’ played tight heavy metal with classic guitar solos that reminded myself of the great 80s and 90s bands and they also performed a tune by Guns ‘n’ Roses, highly enjoyable throughout. ‘Moretallica’ is a tribute band who plays, not surprisingly, tracks by Metallica which isn’t an easy feat to pull off. All the more impressive that they did just that. The band formed in 2012 and are now a well-established tribute act and really sounded bombastic. Their set was hard hitting, heavy and very well executed – they were exciting to watch and to listen to and the set, among other songs, consisted of such gems like; ‘For whom the bell tolls’, Thin Lizzy classic ‘Whisky in the Jar’, ‘One’ and of course ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘Nothing else matters’. The musicianship was superb and their stand in drummer

The doors were only opened at 8.30pm instead of 8 pm, which meant that everything started late and due to time constrains we couldn’t stay for the entire KISS GB set. It was great to see so many KISS fans donning their T-Shirts and a dad brought his little daughter along, who wore a ‘Starchild’ star. The original unwanted were quite entertaining and their music was good albeit it a tad dated sounding at times. They played Kiss’s ‘Tomorrow and tonight’ which was a nice thing to do but the song bared little resemblance to the original track. Nonetheless, they were pretty good overall. KISS GB opened their set with ‘I was made for loving you’ and it made me cringe. At first I thought this must be a comedy night with ‘Gene Simmons’ big belly and ‘Paul’s’ inability to reach those higher notes. With a vast back catalogue to choose from this probably wasn’t a great choice. But from then on they were really good, each song and t

Scottish opening act KING KING played good old rock and roll and their set was highly entertaining and uplifting. Not long after King King had left the stage, the main act EUROPE took us all by storm. Their album ‘Walk the earth’ is a rock triumph and the title track was the song the Swedish rock band started the evening with. Joey Tempest and the boys haven’t lost any of their charisma and showmanship as well as musicianship and Joey’s voice was as great as ever. Older gems like ‘Rock the night’ went down well and the newer material fitted in well with more seasoned songs. We had to leave roughly an hour into their set and will remember them fondly – absolutely brilliant. Also see: Europe 1987