Live Review

High Voltage – Day One – Victoria Park, London

• 3rd Aug 2011

I made my way to High Voltage in Victoria Park on a muggy July afternoon, looking a little out of place on the tube in my DM’s and metal studs surrounded by the Saturday shoppers that were filling in and out of the hot subway. I spotted a few other misfits and being a little unsure of my stop I followed them as they ambled from Bethnal Green up to the festival site, what started as a few stragglers soon turned in to a torrent of black clad, long haired, hardened rockers and suddenly I wasn’t so out of place. I started chatting to a couple of girls from Cardiff, they had an air of urgency about them so I asked who they were so excited to be seeing, it turned out they were there to see the farewell show being performed by 90’s hard rockers Skin, who they had been following around the country on their (second) farewell tour. I separated off wishing them a good festival and made my way in to the arena.

This year they had moved a few things around on the festival site, so once I’d got my bearings I made my way over to the main stage where Skin were about to start, the crowd were still a little sleepy, with the odd burst of excitement from a die hard Skin fan the band finally stepped out and played a good solid set, they have a strong energy and while not always my cup of tea I did find myself tapping my feet along, as I look around at my comrades in arms I notice two familiar faces from my journey in, pressed up against the barrier and energetically thrashing their hair around. It seemed that lead singer Neville MacDonald had also noticed them and dedicated his next song to these lucky die hard fans. The vibe had slipped from sleepy to energetic which is a testament to the band’s performance and no easy task so early in the day.

Spotting a couple of familiar faces from home I headed over in their direction to the popular onsite beer festival, outside the tent there was a crowd gathering so I decided to check it out, in the middle of the Ale hungry group I found a troupe of, what I can only describe as Goth morris dancers, with the traditional bells, hanky’s and batons but dressed in Gothic black and blue costumes. I watched for a little while enjoying the sillyness of it all before breaking away to see what was happening at the Metal Hammer stage. Glaswegian Attica rage were playing a fairly average set, while I could see them managing to get a small crowd going in a local pub, the setting of High Voltage didn’t seem to quite fit. I abandoned the Metal sounds and wandered to the “wizards top hat” also known as the Prog Rock stage where 70’s psychedelic rockers Caravan were finishing up their set to a mellow but substantial audience. I decided to hang around and watch Anathema, a band who have bridged a gap between Gothic Doom metal and Prog rock and as a consequence pulled in a very mixed crowd of fans, after dashing to the front for a couple of choice shots I head back to sit with my friends, deciding to enjoy their set from the sidelines, the sound was strong and their performance was surprisingly energetic given the gentle nature of many of their tracks.

As the day started drifting in to evening I took my leave of Anathema and went back to the main stage where Thin Lizzy (a band to blame for many a drunken table dancing moment) were starting their set. Disappointingly the sound to start with was very shaky, with low levels and then a switch of focus on to the wrong instruments, the beginning of their set was hampered this, however the band still gave it their all, and a few songs in, the levels were improved somewhat. They played many of the old favourites including Whisky in the Jar, Jailbreak and The Boys are Back in Town which went down a storm and set us up nicely for the next act on, Slash! We made our way to the front hoping for slightly better sound, Slash played one of the best shows of the weekend with vocalist Myles Kennedy leading the charge and Slash in his trademark hat and glasses played a prefect set, with an almost 50/50 split between Guns & Roses hits and those from his many other ventures.

Finishing off the day at the main stage were heavy metallers Judas Priest who put on a drama filled show as a farewell to their many fans, with songs spanning their immense 40 year career and as many costume changes from lead singer Rob Halford, with what appeared to be a different coat for each song played, they didn’t let the side down and ended the night on a high note. The only disappointment of the day was the poor sound quality that seemed to span all 3 stages, and I would guess comes from council restrictions due to the festivals inner city location, unfortunately it did leave some bands sounding like cover bands of themselves with much of the bass being whisked away on the light breeze.