2011 - THE HIGHS AND LOWS

TOP 5 FESTIVAL SETS
Can’t split these – all were equally wonderful

DREAM THEATER – HIGH VOLTAGE
Although I’ve always been a fan of DT’s recorded work, I’ve always found them a bit hit and miss live – more of a music lesson than a gig- but this set was a perfect end to a perfect weekend

RHAPSODY OF FIRE – BLOODSTOCK
This one just knocked me sideways- Fabio Leone’s voice was incredible, as was the sound. Shame the band split into two immediately afterwards

GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT – DAMNATION
Headlining the third stage, they clearly impressed an awful lot of people who’d never heard them before going of posts on the festival website afterwards- and no wonder- first time seeing them as a 4 piece, they were total perfection

SPIRES – BLOODSTOCK
I already knew they were amazing, and after their stunning tent filling set at Bloodstock, it seems the Spires bandwagon is about to roll big time. If they were nervous it didn’t show and the ovation they got at the end was quite emotional. I’m glad I was in at the start, seeing them play free gigs in boozers because I’m sure fame (and, hopefully) fortune awaits them

NEAL MORSE/SPOCKS BEARD – HIGH VOLTAGE
Talking of emotional- Neal’s solo (well with a ten piece band!) set on the Saturday had the crowd totally engrossed in the story he was telling – Sadly he didn’t have enough time to play the whole of ‘Testimony 2’ but he found the time to leap into the crowd for a hug with his SB bandmates who were in the middle of the crowd, then during the SB set, He ran onto the stage to sing a couple of songs….what.. me.. crying?? No it’s just…that…dust…it gets in your eyes, y’know????

TOP 5 GIGS OF 2011

Again, in no particular order

SONATA ARCTICA – MANCHESTER ACADEMY 2
Having only seen SA at festivals, it was great to see them play a full set – a full house, killer setlist and Tony Kakko’s voice was perfect

JOURNEY/STYX/FOREIGNER – MANCHESTER MEN ARENA
If I could pick my ultimate 3 band line up, this would be it! All three were outstanding but Styx stole it for me – first on, they played like they were the real headliners!!.

RIVERSIDE – HOLMFIRTH PICTUREDROME
Massive crowd for this one – I think the entire Polish community of West Yorkshire had turned up!! Quite possibly the best live sound I’ve ever heard

PURE REASON REVOLUTION = HOLMFIRTH PICTUREDROME
Great shame they’ve split up now, but they went out with a bang- 2 hour set including the whole of ‘The Dark Thirs’

AYNSLEY LISTER BAND – SALE WATERSIDE AWRTS CENTRE
After seeing him open for It Bites a while back I took the opportunity to catch one of his own shows – what a player this lad is , and his band were on fine form too.

..AND THE DISAPPOINTMENTS

OPETH – HERITAGE
I LOVE Opeth- they are probably the band responsible for me getting a taste for death metal- it was their mix of light and shade which drew me in and I’m all for bands trying something different and expanding their horizons but I just don’t get what Opeth are trying to do at the moment. ‘Heritage’ misses me by a country mile- never did like the jazzy proggy stuff back in the 70’s and this sounds like that. On top of that, they ignore 90% of their back catalogue by playing nothing with ‘harsh’ vocals live – bored the pants off me for 2 hours, they did , but I’ll be back next time they tour!!

SKINDRED- UNION BLACK
One of the great British live bands around at the moment, so why was ‘Union Black’ so bland?

BLACKFIELD – WELCOME TO MY DNA
…..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ARCHITECTS – THE HERE AND NOW
After the brilliance of ‘Hollow Crown’, it seems the band got their heads turned. Instead of using John Mitchell on production again they went off to North America for it’s follow up- and had all of the things that make them ‘special’ produced out of them. This sounds so (that word again) bland and has the effect of making them sound like a gazillion other modern bands. Hopefully, they’ve got it out of their system now- going off the song ‘Devil’s Island’ they recorded towards the end of the year.. Architects have got their ‘Angry’ back

QUEENSRYCHE – DEDICATED TO CHAOS
(See Blackfield)…

BEST MOMENT OF 2011

HIGH VOLTAGE FESTIVAL
Weather had been abysmal all the way up to the week of the festival – horror stories of mudbaths at the same site the weekend before were all over the internet. However, the skies cleared, the temperature rose and by the time the gates opened, 20,000 middle aged rockers (and a few younger ones) were treated to wall to wall sunshine for 2 whole days…. Music wasn’t half bad either!

WORST MOMENT OF 2011
Too many great bands splitting up.. Thrice, Thursday, Pure Reason Revolution. Cog, but worst of all.. OCEANSIZE. Even now some 9 months on, I can’t believe I will never see these five adopted sons of Manchester performing together again. Thanks for all the great memories guys, but please.. GET BACK TOGETHER!!

GIG LIST 2011

Here's a list of all the live sets/shows I've seen this year

BEST OF 2011 101 - 200

This list is just in alphabetical order- mainly stuff I've not listened to anywhere near enough to be able to totally judge their merits..

BEST OF THE YEAR 2011

BEST OF THE YEAR 2011

As ever, no apologies for any perceived lack of taste!!

I've added some 'genre' links at the end of each line - not really something I like to do as I feel it can put people off listening to something that they may otherwise enjoy, but I've had some people asking for these..Don't take these as literal- for instance, if I've tagged something as 'progressive' PLEASE don't think that this will mean the album has 47 minute lute solos - I'm using the word 'progressive' as a description rather than as 'Prog' as a genre..if you get my drift!

101 - 200 to follow

BEST OF 2010 - 101 - 200

Lots of good stuff on here that I either got too late to play enough or somehow slipped through the 'listening net'. I reckon several of these would be top 50 albums if I re-did my list in a couple of months.


Also there are some that I expected to like more, but didn't, but are still decent enough albums!! 

POSITION	ARTIST	ALBUM TITLE	GENRE 1	GENRE 2
101	In The Wake Of Giants	The Joy, The Sorrow	alternative
102	Butterfly Explosion	Lost Trails	alternative	progressive
103	Pure Reason Revolution	Hammer And Anvil	alt/progressive	electronica
104	Firewind	Days Of Defiance	metal
105	Lonely Kamel	Blues For The Dead	stoner	rock
106	Kiuas	Lustdriven	metal
107	Mudy On The Sakuban	Pavilion	post rock	Instrumental
108	Quandray	Ready To Fail	progressive
109	Sky Architects	The Reflection	post rock
110	Samarah	The World Stops Turning	hard rock
111	Dream Evil	In The Night	metal
112	White Wizzard	Over The Top	metal
113	The Postman Season	God Relieve Our Grief	alternative
114	Reckless Love	s/t	metal
115	Haken	Aqarius	progressive
116	Houston	s/t	melodic rock
117	Midas Fall	Eleven Return And Revert	alternative
118	Six Gallery	Breakthroughs In Modern Art	alternative
119	Avenged Sevenfold	Nightmare	metal
120	Youth Pictures Of Florence Henderson	s/t	post rock	Instrumental
121	Maserati	Pyramid Of The Sun	post rock
122	Norma Jean	Meridional	metal
123	No Guerra	Ahonikenk	metal
124	In Casino Out	Shields ep	alternative
125	Airbourne	No Guts No Glory	metal
126	Athletics	Why Aren't I Home	alternative	post rock
127	Blueneck	The Fallen Host	alternative
128	Fen	Trails Out Of Gloom	metal	progressive
129	Rotting Christ	AEALO	metal
130	Post Harbour	They Can't Hurt You If You Don't Believe In Them	post rock	Instrumental
131	Valencia	Dancing With A Ghost	alt/moderm
132	Theset	Monsters	alt/modern
133	Mugstar	Lime	Psychedelic	progressive
134	Powerworld	Human Parasite	metal
135	TotoRo	ep	post rock
136	22	Flux	alt/modern
137	Souvenir's Young America	The Name Of The Snake	post rock	Instrumental
138	Emarosa	s/t	alt/modern
139	Eluveitie	Everything Remains (As It Never was)	metal	Folk
140	Finger Eleven	Life Turns Electric	Alternative
141	James LaBrie	Static Impulse	hard rock
142	Masterplan	Time To Be King	hard rock
143	Middle Class Rut	No Name No Color	alternative
144	The Intersphere	Interspheres, Atmospheres	alternative	progressive
145	The American Dollar	Atlas	post rock	Instrumental
146	As I Lay Dying	The Powerless Rise	metal
147	Blaze Bayley	Promise And Terror	metal
148	Humanfly	Darker Later	metal
149	Iron Maiden	The Final Frontier	metal
150	G.OD	Left For Dead	post rock
151	Blessthefall	Witness	alt/metal
152	Black Sea	Some Things Cannot Be Mirrored	post rock
153	Silent Call	Greed	metal
154	Apollo 18	The Violet	post rock
155	The Ocean	Anthropocentric	alt/metal
156	The Sleeping	The Big Deep	alternative
157	Young Guns	All Our Kings Are Dead	modern rock
158	Gholas	Загадка	post rock	alternative
159	Zoroaster	Matador	post rock
160	Torche	Songs For Singles	Stoner pop
161	The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza	Danza III – The Series Of Unfortunate Events	post hardcore	metal
162	Envy	Recitation	post rock
163	General Lee	Roads	post rock
164	Jakob	Solace	post rock
165	Mugstar	Sun, Broken	Psychedelic	progressive
166	Her Name Is Calla	The Quiet Lamb	Alternative	folk
167	Exilym	No More Freedom	post rock	Instrumental
168	You May Die In The Desert	International Waters EP	post rock
169	Beta State	Stars	alt/modern
170	worC	When The Day Forms	posr rock
171	Alesana	The Emptiness	alt/modern
172	My Sleeping Karma	Tri	post rock	Instrumental
173	Avantasia	Angel Of Babylon	metal
174	Avantasia	The Wicked Symphony	metal
175	Brian Howe	Circus Bar	classic rock
176	Dead Letter Circus	This Is The Warning	Alt/Modern
177	Efterklang	Magic Chairs	alternative	Progressive
178	Myrath	Desert Call	Metal	progressive
179	Nelson	Lightning Strikes Twice	classic rock
180	The Damned Things	Ironiclast	Alt/modern	Metal
181	The Ocean	Heliocentric	alt/metal
182	Rosetta	A Determination Of Morality	post metal
183	Rolo Tomassi	Cosmology	alt/rock
184	The Viginmarys	Cast The First Stone EP	Classic Rock
185	Cathedral	The Guessing Game	Metal	Doom
186	Blind Guardian	At The Edge Of Time	Metal
187	Amia Venera Landscape	The Long Procession	alt/metal
188	Dec Burke	Destroy All Monsters	progressive
189	Alcest	Ecailles de Lune	post rock
190	Arcade Fire	The Suburbs	alternative
191	Constants	If Tomorrow The War	Alternative	post rock
192	IlikeTrains	He Who Saw The Deep	alternative
193	We	We Are	post rock
193	Exit Calm	s/t	Alternative
195	Blindead	Affliction XXIX II MXMVI	alternative	post rock
196	Collapse Under The Empire	The Sirens Sound	post rock
197	We Are The Fallen	Tear The World Down	alt/metal
198	Cloudkicker	A New Heavenly Body	post metal
199	Hadoken	Luminary	post rock
200	ReVamp	s/t	Metal