Concert Reviews

HOME OF METAL is an amazing exhibition currently on display in Birmingham/England, long hailed as the birthplace of Heavy Metal, with the major success of Black Sabbath creating something truly unique. The exhibition is a must-see experience for all heavy rock lovers even though it obviously highlights bands like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest , Napalm Death and other bands from this unique geographical area. The exhibition offers its visitors the chance to put on a wig and play drums or guitar and enjoy making music for a while but, more importantly, offers an insight into the times and lives of four lads from Aston (a Birmingham suburb) collectively known as Black Sabbath. Sabbath' musical whiz-kid Tony Iommi even lent some of his equipment to Home Of Metal. Artwork, tour programs and stage clothes are on display and videos are looped featuring interviews with fans and band members - many newspaper clips from the late 1960's to mid seventies are on display, too to show the visi...

LG Arena, Birmingham - May 29th 2011 support act: The Jolly Boys (Picture left: My girlfriend making sure we get a portion of fries before the show) Shortly after entering the massive building that houses the LG Arena we came across an acoustic stage where a local band called "Charishma" performed. We only enjoyed one song but really liked what we heard. The music was very much in the same vain as tonights' main act: SADE Before Sade came on we had the pleasure of enjoying a strange yet remarkably compelling music act from Jamaica: "The Jolly Boys" - all 'old age pensioner' type musicians but really fun to watch and listen to as they mostly delivered cover songs from Johny Cash's great "Ring of fire" to the Rolling Stones classic "You can't always get what you want". All presented in traditionally instrumented Jamaican style. Their gig lasted just under an hour and only a couple minutes later the main show began. "Soldie...

My girlfriend entered my details into an online draw and won us two tickets to SADE in Birmingham this coming Sunday!!

HEAVEN 17 November 26th 2010, HMV Institute Birmingham Just like OMD , who performed their album “Architecture & Morality” in its entirety plus many hits back in 2007, Heaven 17 is on tour to perform their 1981 gem “Penthouse & Pavement” in its entirety and, of course, the evening doesn’t end there. Heaven 17 has always been regarded as a mere spin-off from The Human League , which at some stage included Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware, who co-wrote the leagues major hit “Don’t you want me?”, which on that cold November night in Birmingham is being performed in an acoustic manner by Heaven 17 vocalist Glenn Gregory. Live musicians join H17 on band and the whole experience was just fantastic. Apparently the band felt the same as they were calling the crowd in Birmingham “audience of the tour” – and the energy on the night was electrifying. Not least because Heaven 17 are in top notch form and the songs sound great – the video screens added yet another dimension to their performance. The...

Fans on their way to the venue “You’ve wanted the best, you’ve got the best …” and they were the best. KISS at the O2 in Dublin. Las Vegas based support act Taking Dawn played a 45 minutes set and, like many support bands, had to struggle with a moderate sound and little lighting. Nonetheless, they were quite well received and their songs had melody and depth and the guys were a joy to listen to. TAKING DAWN ** Again, like so many other support acts KISS had had over the decades, TD paled in comparison to the beast that is KISS. All the usual effects from rising drum kits to fire and blood spitting and so on were there and the pyrotechnics were marvellous, yet – what impressed me the most was how musically tight and professional the 4-piece unit is. “From the beginning to the boom”, referring to their latest offering SONIC BOOM, the band performed new material as well as classics including anthems like: “God gave rock and roll to you”, “Detroit Rock City”, “Love Gun” and a brilliantly ...

The o2, Dublin, December 10th 2009 Music for the masses - Depeche Mode The support act didn’t bother mentioning their name so I won’t bother commenting on them. It is a fair bet to say that any band looks pale in comparison to the one and only Depeche Mode. Depeche was never pigeon holed as an “80’s band” and in almost thirty years they grew and grew and are still growing. After all, their latest album “Sounds of the Universe” is a Top 10 success in many countries. Mode were in top notch form and despite some slight sound problems they delivered the goods. The playlist included gems like “Stripped”, “In your room”, “Enjoy the silence” as well as a few brilliantly performed songs from their 1997 album Ultra , the first album after keyboarder Alan Wilder had left the band. Indeed, “It’s no good” and “home” sounded bombastic. The show ended with “Personal Jesus” and left the audience wanting more. What a great band *** Martin Gore and Dava Gahan rocked the o2 in Dublin

DM is touring and most of their gigis have been re-scheduled. We will see them in December 2009 in Dublin and in February 2010 in Duesseldorf and you'll find reviews in due course right here!!!

Depeche's "Tour of the Universe" is in jeopardy as the band was forced to cancel quite a number of gigs. Frontman Dave Gahan is suffering from a malignant tumor, which has been operated on in New York recently. The concert in Duesseldorf/Germany scheduled for June 5th has had to be cancelled.

SECC Glasgow/Scotland, April 11th 2009 ULTRAVOX 2009 RETURN TO EDEN tour 2009 Midge Ure and co. are back in full force ULTRAVOX taking a bow in their native Scotland Dark yet melodic - ULTRAVOX! Midge Ure and his companions from ULTRAVOX gave it their all and they delivered beautifully. From "Vienna" to "Hymn" and "Perfect Stranger" they played many great classics without sounding dated or 80's. With three synths on stage, bass and e-guitar and even electro violin and both acoustic and e-drums on stage, there was enough variety in their performance to never get bored. The venue was very nice and calm and orderly yet wild. The evening didn't pass without technical problems here and there but ULTRAVOX are real pros. Their material sounded actually much better live than on record and sounded partially Gothik and dark-electro. It was a very energetic performance and well thought out - brilliant!

Just a few days and we will cover the ULTRAVOX homecoming gig in Glasgow for this very blog. In the meantime you can sit back and enjoy listening to a few interviews: Robert Goerl (DAF ) - German Sparks - English Paul Humphreys of OMD and One Two fame - English Deborah Rees from Safeconcerts.com