Sun 18 Sep – Gary Numan's Dead Son Rising Tour 2011

Shame about the mix for the support act … it was awful; I've no idea whether he was any good or not as everything was turned to 11 (in a Spinal Tap stylee) except the vocals which were down to about 0.5; you couldn't really differentiate the actual music from the wall of noise - shame.

Gary Numan however was epic… the mix was right and opening with "Down in the park" made me very happy :D Was a good mix of "classics" and new stuff in the set,…

Wed 16 Feb – Anathema, North Atlantic Oscillation, Awake By Design

Awake by Design : This is the first band I've ever seen live that has actually pissed me off. It's not because they were bad or couldn't play or acted like jackasses on the stage (at least no more than you'd expect) it was this: the music was all perfectly acceptable, sort of the melodic end of death metal almost, in fact it was quite good.

The vocals were also perfectly acceptable, the guy can hit the right notes in the right places and there is a certain amount…

Fri 30 Jul – Sonisphere Festival 2010

(k - that's an in joke from the campsite)

Right - I'm home, I've shat, slept, showered and shaved and I'm beginning to feel like a member of the human race again, so while it's fresh in my noggin (and yeah, I'm just writing this to remind myself of what it was all like ;) ) - my first festival at Knebworth!

Overall, awesomeness incarnate with 3 of the most spectacular headliners imaginable - so here's a quick run down (the order might not be quite chronological - there was beer involved):

Friday…

Fri 4 Dec – The Crüxshadows, V2a

I still can't believe Ayria wasn't on the billing - "Special Guest" pfff, she was brilliant, like a bouncy cybergoth aerobics instructor… and I mean that in a good way! I think I had a big daft smile throughout her set even though she didn't do Red Shift (my personal favourite) - I particularly loved Analog Trash live, to be honest I'd have paid the ticket price for Ayria alone… well, actually, we did really as that's who we went to see. The Crüxshadows were an added bonus.

V2A were the second support…

Wed 28 Oct – Amon Amarth, Entombed

First off - it's a shame about Evile having to pull out - much more of a shame for the band of course having lost a friend / band member.

Now on to the good stuff - Entombed were epic, frankly. They've been one of the few constants in my music collection since before there were even CDs (yeah, I'm getting on a bit) and they're still one of the best Death bands ever - Death with a hint of groove :) Good to hear the "oldies and goldies" live again, Stranger Aeons…

Today is one of those days, whilst the light fades to murk outside and the snow slowly melts into slush under the now relentless drizzle; today is a "My Dying Bride" kind of day.

The Angel and the Dark River

With the amount of AggroTech/EBM I've been listening to lately, I'd almost forgotten how much I fkn love this band - particularly their old stuff ("Trinity", "Turn Loose the Swans" and "The Angel and the Dark River" in particular).