Live Review

High Voltage – Day Two – Victoria Park, London

• 3rd Aug 2011

With a slight limp and a fuzzy head I made my way to the second day of London’s High Voltage festival, the sun is beating down and so I fumbled for my hat and suncream as I make my way in to the site. As I spent most of the first day haunting the main stage I decided to make my first stop at the Metal Hammer stage to see Furyon another of the many home grown acts gracing the festival, hailing from Brighton I’d been hearing whispers about these guys, and it seemed so had many other festival goers, as despite being billed first for the day they managed to pull in a decent crowd. Furyon may not be pushing any musical boundaries, but their riffs were solid and they provided a strong and entertaining performance, the fans certainly loved it. I decided to stick around and see what The Treatment had to offer, I’d read a description about these guys being a heavily 80’s rock influenced band, so I was mildly surprised when a group of young whippersnappers wandered out on to the stage, they had a presence though and put on a short but fierce show.

With my stomach telling me it was time for lunch I took a short break to re-fuel and wander the site. Walking around it sounded as though some of the worst of the sound difficulties from the previous day had been addressed, though the levels were still low. After a huge Crepe and refreshing glass of Pimms (not very “Metal” I know) I settled back at the Metal Hammer stage ready to watch Graveyard, they look like a bunch of pretty nondescript rockers, their sound however is far from that, with a bluesy stoner rock sound drifting in to doom with the odd up beat riff thrown in for good measure, they started my evening with a nice deep rumble and lead nicely in to the next act Black Spiders. A beardy hard rock band from Sheffield they jumped about and made full use of every inch of the small metal hammer stage whilst pumping out a series of heavy basey and catchy songs with titles like “KISS tried to kill me” and “Si, el Diablo”.

I took my leave of the Metal Hammer stage and dashed over to find out what Spocks Beard had to offer the prog rockers, growing up I was subjected to a great deal of Star Trek along side Genesis and Yes anthems, I guess this band with the name Spocks Beard and the twinkly piano accompaniments to dramatically sung stories about life and love makes some odd sort of sense to me. I took a short break before settling down to watch the rock legends Jethro Tull. With his soft “English gentleman” accent Ian Anderson engaged the audience and drew us all in to a world of jazzed up Bach and Mother Goose, it was the perfect set for a summer Sunday evening and for their encore? They invited the one and only Joe Bonamassa out on stage to join them.

As the Prog Rock and Metal Hammer stages closed up for the evening it was time to get back to the Main stage for the evenings headliners Dream Theater, the band that bring together the complicated sounds of bands like Rush with a more Gothic Metal vibe (without the screaming). They played a technically great set and clearly put a great deal in to their performance, however they were received with a mixed reaction, there was a definite split between those die hard Dream Theater fans and the people less familiar with their work, with people seemingly leaving in droves towards the second half of their set. I enjoyed the show myself, however wonder if they were quite suited to the headlining slot. It’s time to say farewell to High Voltage for another year, this festival shows great promise, it offers a selection of rock music that you don’t get at many other “alternative” festivals and attracts a good mix of both old and young fans, making it a little less hectic and a generally civilised affair, their biggest let down is the sound, although many of the problems from Saturday were resolved, I can’t help but think that many of these bands deserve to be heard loud and clear, at a level that perhaps the organisers are simply not allowed to play them. I look forward to seeing High Voltage thrive and continue delighting rock fans for many years to come.