What a wonderful day. Absolutely magnificent. We went toe to toe with them, took them on at their own game, and ultimately prevailed. Tense. That's an understatement. I was jumping up and down, pacing, hiding behind that sofa, and when the ref gave that last minute penalty. Sheesh. But he missed, and Wales secured an absolutely awesome 33-34 victory over France. And in Paris at that.

Oh yeah, and there was this hardcore halfdayer as well.

Right, let's see if I can remember it all. First up were HHH, a young band with a CD out, that I bought at the end. Their six song set had 3 covers, Gorilla Biscuits, Agnostic Front and Warzone. Their own material indicate that when they get more of it, they could be pretty good. Described on the flyer as old school, it was one of the most listenable sets of the day.

Next were Symbiosis from Manchester. Described as Emo Metal on the flyer wouldn't be the way I would describe them. Fleeting glimpses of more introspective mellower stuff (the emo I guess), mixed up with a gruff hardcore. It wasn't bad, but the vocalist elicited that perennial question, (well one of them for me) of talking to the crowd. Should you or not? I think yeah. But then should it be cheesy or preachy? Neither in my opinion. Talk to them. If it's cheesy it just feels that. If it's preachy and condescending, trying to teach politics or "inspire" as to how to live a lifestyle, well, unless you're preaching to the converted, it falls on deaf years. It's a fine line which maybe got crossed a few times. But most people seemed to agree with thoughts of "think before any action". But hey, I'm the outsider here, so I'm not the converted.

Next if I remember were supposed to be Unite. But I’m not sure it was them. Guess I should’ve asked. Whatever, it was the more metallic content, a hard and heavy set, which impressed me a lot. But screaming your guts into the faces of impassive onlookers must feel slightly disconcerting at times.

666Dead I think were next, replacing Third Stone. I was thinking, "God, Iron Monkey Morrow has a competitor in the yaaaaaa yaaa ya ya yaaaaaaaaa" vocal stakes. Apparently the band could be a bastardised offspring of Iron Monkey and Hard To Swallow, so that may explain it. It was fairly nutty, and not bad at all.

Imbalance provide a pleasing change to the sheer intensity that has gone on before. They're a more melodic laid back proposition who on the 2 occassions that I've seen them, have impressed me enough that I really should get the album when its out. A nice change.

Silencer7 I'd never heard of before, but maybe band of the day for me. Again, it was just sufficiently different from the all out intensity that was begining to dominate the day. West Coast Style they were described as on the flier, well every band either has to have a "coast" or a "school" associated with them. There was even a song that sounded a bithip-hop like which was ok.

Stampin Ground cause the major chaos of the day. Their latest album, "An Expression ..." is a very metal grounded released to my ears, but today was the most "hardcore" I've seen them. Although having said that, there is a quote from Adam when I go back to Southend, I want to be able to go to the hearing doctor and go doctor, Nottingham fucked up my hearingfor good. Which is completed by members of the audience. And if you don't know where that's borrowed from, well, lets just say that 2 members have recently rejoined the band.Vocalist Adam is crowd surfing and get a circle pit going, though he does get dropped once. It's all good fun, though it looked at times as though the macho dance shit was rearing its head. Lesion and the Death That You Deserve are the highlights, before Adam explains that headliners "Knuckledust are missing a Knuck"

Which seemed to mean that KD guitarist Wema is lost somewhere on the roads approaching Nottingham. Did he find the place? I don't know, cos after 6 hours I'm beat. That match this afternoon drained the emotions from me, and the problem with all dayers is there is a need for a change, a break. If like me, you're on the fringe, you need something different. It's why I can't commit to one specific sub genre of this whole "heavy music" thing. Plus I feel that cos I write these reviews, it's my duty to watch everything. Sometimes you need the break. At the end of this, I do. So apologies to KD if they did play. I'm sure it would've been as intense as the last time I saw them. Me, I'm walking that hill and then gonna have a read of the zines, and pop some of the CDs and demos on.

And revel in a fucking marvellous Welsh victory this afternoon!