Live Review

High Voltage Festival Day One –

• 14th Aug 2010

On a hot July afternoon several thousand rock fans descended on Victoria Park London for the debut of High Voltage, the festival “built by rock fans, for rock fans”. With the sun beating down we piled out of Mile End tube station with the hoards of expectant muso’s in their colourful array of antique t-shirts, bandanna’s and studded belts. Looking more like a relaxed gig crowd than the usual bedraggled festival lot. We made our way through the gates in to the arena and took a walk around to get our bearings, it’s a small site with the three stages placed a mere stone’s throw from one another, around a central area of light entertainment including the infamous Wall Of Death, American style Ace Cafe, standard festival food stalls and a well equipped fun fair.

 After ensuring we had a little refreshment in the form of an extortionately priced pint of Gaymers cider and getting our bearings, we headed to the Metal Hammer stage to watch the doom underdogs Orange Goblin kick start our weekend, they didn’t disappoint, playing a solid hard hitting set and managing to swiftly bring the drifting crowd to life. This was my first time seeing the band play live and I was assured by some nearby die hard fans that they always put on a strong and energetic show, fronted by the goliath that is Ben Ward I found myself wondering how they have never made it in to the higher billed spots, they certainly had the crowd for it. The vibe was upbeat and we decided to hang around and check out Hammerfall who have been touring as support for Metallica, They had a lot of energy and pleasant enough sound but personally after a few songs full of cheery riffs and predictable sounding songs I felt the need for something different.

We meandered around to the main stage just in time to catch the start of Gary Moore, who we were somewhat shocked to find now rather strongly resembles Meat Loaf. He was in full swing with Over the Hills and Far Away which I found myself cheerily singing along to, I must confess I had hoped to hear a little more of his heavier rock songs myself and found that after about half an hour I’d had quite enough of listening to the same riff running through his repertoire. It was getting close to 5 o’clock so we dashed back to the Metal Hammer stage to catch the doom gods Cathedral play a great set, front man Lee Dorian was full of energy the only distraction for me being the 70’s style short T-shirt he was wearing and kept tugging at to pull it down, however my sister in arms was not so keen saying “I like the music, but that singer ruins it singing out of time with the beat!”, different strokes for different folks I guess, Cathedral fans would not have been disappointed though.

There was time to quickly grab some massively overpriced and fairly bland food before Saxon started their manic and highly entertaining set, only let down by the low sound levels imposed on the festival by the city, they certainly show no signs of slowing down or quietening down without a fight, Biff made this clear when he had the crowds chanting at the sound man to TURN IT UP! We missed the second half of the Saxon set in order to go and catch some of the last ever appearance of Heaven and Hell (a Ronnie J Dio tribute), they were set to play the festival before the sad passing of Dio and agreed to appear in a tribute to him and his memory with Glenn Hughes and Jorne Lande stepping in on vocals, it was clearly an emotional performance for band and fans alike and they played a perfectly executed and moving set including The Mob Rules and Turn up the night, we unfortunately missed the end of their set (and I heard later rumoured an appearance of Phil Anselmo of Pantera and Down) to get back to the Metal Hammer stage for headliners Black Label Society.

BLS fans had been certainly the strongest presence of the day so far, including one group over 20 strong who had spent the entire day stood at the front of the stage in anticipation of this moment, they weren’t disappointed in the slightest when the sound was cranked up and the blast of classics like Crazy Horse and Fire it up were played. Zakk Wylde was on form, with his mandatory guitar changes and hair flicking and when they sent out a barrage of BLS beach balls in to the crowd we saw hundreds of metal chicks diving in to get one of their own…sadly we were not in the lucky few. After a confetti filled finish we dashed over to catch one of the highlights of the weekend age-less trio ZZTop! After pontificating on what they looked like under those beards and how much money they’d be able to raise for charity by shaving them off and letting us see their true identities we settled in to enjoy the relaxing and bouncy boys play some blues, they were fantastic and seemed to genuinely enjoy being up there playing for us, my only wish would be to see them in a little American hall with support from John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd all bouncing about the stage in unison….sadly this is as close as I’ll ever get to that particular dream.

As they closed their set we made our way to the gates and left the park at the end of day 1, exhausted but chilled and on a high note, there wasn’t one bad act all day and our only worry now was how to find our way back to Mile End. However to our surprise and joy we found a ream of police and festival staff lined along the roads, partially closed off to make room for the festival crowds all directing us right back to the tube…there is one thing I can say about this festival that stands out beyond all the others, it is superbly organised, the toilets were always clean, there was never a cue at a bar, there were plenty of people there to help if you needed it and they even ensured you got home safe! Good work High Voltage!

Now time for sleep before we are back for round two…