How long is it since I've had a whinge? Oi, I said whinge! Well, ok if it is only a few minutes, I'm going to have another. Guess what? Yeah good ole Rock City. See, I got there at about 8.15 and OMS were almost finished. I mean come on. They didn't even go on until 8.25 on Tuesday. Why so early? Ah, it's RC, it's a Saturday, and you've got to get the bands on and off in order to get the punters in and out so that the club night can happen. Anyway, OMS yeah. The only thing I can really point to tonight is Yap's speech before Remain Calm and how effective and "end of millenium" the pure white light makes the song nd the erformance feel - it's the epitomy of the late 90s metal gig as one diver departs from the speaker stack. And the reception they receive at the end makes it seem as though they'll soon be the headline band. Which at least means I'll be able to capture the entire set.
How long is it since I've had a whinge? Ok, well time for one. Machine Head were good. But having seen them only a few days ago, they were disappointing. Why? Because basically Mr Flynn decided to say exactly the same things, in the same places, with the same vocal inflections. Although he changed the wolverhampton to Nottingham. Ok, that's not a big thing, and it's my fault for seeing them twice, but as much as I'm sure that Flynn is totally genuine in what he says, I kind of end up feeling that it's missing something. spontaneity. He takes to the stage telling us "I know what you want Nottingham, I know what the fuck you want".. The Blood The Sweat The Tears is relabelled The Blood The Sweat the beers. The vocal inflexion for "the beers" is exactly the same and yes, I'm being totally anal in all this. But it's just something that stands out to me. I mean, what does it require for a place not to be "full of crazy assed insane people" blah blah blah.
Of course the place is going mad, and they are being treated as returning heroes. And Flynn is at pains to point out the RC was the first place they ever headlined in the UK. And it may just be me, but there' a sense of irony when he points out that a number of the sold out crowd weren't there. I wasn't. But it struck me as ironic, cos neither were half of MH.
Struck a nerve gets the pit going with it's tempo, and for me it's noticeable that I still think the earlier, more thrash oriented material goes down the best and feels better. Though the drums are waaaaaay to dominant in the mix. And Dave Mclain in his shades and high position overlooking everything strikes me as looking like a comic film hero or supervillan. Someone from Batman. Look, my sense of humour and logic may well be different to a lot of peoples.
The one difference, and it's a good one, is that the bloody medley of pantera, seps etc is dropped tonight. thank kcuf. Though i still think they mess up the end. No Block. I reckon they should do Davidian followed by Block and just bugger straight off after that. As it is when they do bugger off, it's 5 past bleeding 10 and they've only been on for 70 minutes tops. Which on 3 albums, major headlne tour and all that, is pretty much taking the piss. No matter how many times Flynn says very in his thank you very much departure from the stage. But hey, I'm just a cynical old bastard. Please ignore me and move on.