Live Review

Hard Rock Calling – Day 1 Review – Hyde Park, London

• 15th Jul 2012

The first day at the 2012 Hard Rock Calling festival was met with rain with persistent grey clouds shadowing the grounds at Hyde park for the duration of the day.

The small, but growing in reputation festival had four stages (varying in size) with a variety of different rock, emo and punk acts to entertain the crowds.

The main stage opened with Kids In Glass Houses for the emo crowd. At this time of day though the land was still fairly sparse. The area used for the festival seemed large enough to accommodate certainly 3 stages of size, but other than that the space between was littered mainly with food and drnk venders with little else to do except wander back and forth between bands.

Black Stone Cherry came on close to the 5pm mark and marked the first proper actual “Rock” sounding band and provided a bit of a wake up to the people onsite. Whilst the sound booming from the main stage wasn’t perfect, it was a decent act at least on stage making the most of their set.

Taking a peek round the corner at the large Pepsi Max tent proved to be a worth venture as the tent provided bands therein with a great sound. Hawk Eyes in particular sounded fantastic .

A detour to the Hard Rock Rising Stage was called for (also tent based) – but also provided one of the biggest shocks of the day. Catching the likes of FOS, Koo Koo Kitchen and The Launderettes did make us wonder who the hell was booking these “rising” stars as there was very little novelty (and in some cases some downright ripping off going on). It’s a shame then that with so many talented unknown bands out there that this was the best that the organisers could muster? There were slight improvements later n with the likes of two woman guitar and drum duo of Deep Valley, but little else to recommend.

Out on the main Stage Cold Chisel also failed to make much of an impression. It would take Iggy and the Stooges after to cheer faces up a bit with the blonde haired icon still happy to prance back and force on the stage like he was doing it for the first time again.

The one band though that brought it in full force to the festival and are pretty much reining champs of how to entertain a crowd were Skindred. There was bemusement after as to how they ended up second on the bill of the main supporting stage. The interaction between band and crowd was consistent throughout be it throwing lyrics back on command to helicoptering t-shirts at the rousing finish. But with a charismatic lead like that in place, you band is sure for success.

Following Skindred were the truly nutso funk/jazz troupe The Mars Volta. They have played a few Rock festivals, and whilst they know how to do long, protracted riffs – they always seem slightly out of place. But they are still a decent act and have a microphone-swinging lead with a voice that stands out. Not quite the finish you would want for the stage, but still a good act to see live when the opportunity arises.

After a long, sluggish day, the final act on the main stage that the crowd (who had shown up in force by this point) finally took to the stage. Soundgarden you’d expect to open the clouds themselves. But the rain started to hit down once more and a truly missed opportunity started to play out before our very ears. Soundgarden sounded terrible.

Chris Cornell has a voice that can inspire; but it just wasn’t projecting to the crowd. The rest of the band were muffled beyond belief. We are not sure if it was a poor sound check (as we did relocate to near the booth only to discover that it still sounded terrible). Realisation finally settled in a few songs in (after the likes of Spoonman) when Black Hole Sun failed to sound even the slightest bit impactful in its chorus and with crowd mutters of disapproval starting float in the air.

It’s a shame then that this long awaited show should leave such disappointment, but we can’t always have it all the time when we want it. There is still the fun and fond memory of Skindred rocking it like no other!