I’m sitting typing this while Trivium play what sounds like a blinder of a set. I can hear it quick nicely from the press area! Absolutely blasted by Nailbomb I’ll be using all the Vocalzone teas tonight to prep for tomorrow’s arduous day.
Saturday is loaded with interviews, but today wasn’t exactly short of chatter. If I count correctly we covered twenty bands from those on the EMP stages through New Blood and SOPHIE to tonight’s headliners, Trivium. A quick shout out to all the PR staff for helping organise all this, and to the PR-less acts who timidly asked if it was OK to have a chat. Of course, it’s what we’re here for!
I managed to catch quite a few bands today, some only for song or two, and a lot of them have popped up on our Instagram though I gave up after a while due to the signal being worse than usual this year. There was some really good acts that I’ve not seen before – tealdeer, Backseat Juliet and Vmbra were all good. Vmbra’s drummer’s vocals are superb.
Bigger bands played to some huge crowds. Paleface Swiss were every bit as good as they were in Glasgow in February, Shrapnel got everything going, Orange Goblin continued their wind down as they head for “retirement” and as I said Trivium are playing a great show. A shout out to Lacuna Coil, though. A band I can take or leave, I have to day that Christina Scabia’s live vocals are a thing of wonder. Absolutely incredible.
The highlight, though, was seeing Nailbomb again. I have seen them before but I can’t remember when! Obviously it was around 30 years ago so I’d need to dig a bit to remind myself. The Sophie tent was about 8 people deep outside when I got there but a bit of careful crowd management (I wiggled) got me front and centre for complete bedlam. Sweaty and sore-throaty I’m waiting for Sean to grab his photos of Kataklysm and then we’ll head home for that tea…
