Monsters of Rock 2006

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After ten years the most famous rock festival in Europe has properly returned. The last one-day Monsters of Rock was held at Donington, its home for over a decade, with headliners KISS in 1996. The name was resurrected for an arena package tour featuring Alice Cooper and Thunder in 2002, and again in 2003 with Whitesnake and Gary Moore but had never returned as a one day festival until this year.

Unable to return to Donington, because the Download festival now resides there, the National Bowl in Milton Keynes, the site of many legendary concerts, was selected as its replacement. With a very strong seven-band bill (the openers not being officially announced until on the day, which beat the t-shirt bootleggers nicely), a comparatively low ticket price and excellent weather conditions, this was set to be a fantastic return for the historic event.

Unfortunately, deposited the strong line-up, low ticket-price and excellent weather conditions the event was chronically under-attended. A great shame and the festival must surely be in doubt for future years if this is the response it’s going to get. It would appear trend-following events like Download, Carling Weekend and V have the festival market cornered in the UK.

Bands reviewed:
Roadstar | Ted Nugent | Queensrÿche | Thunder | Journey | Alice Cooper | Deep Purple

Roadstar

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Currently number one choice in England for a hard rock support band, everyone from The Darkness to Queensrÿche has picked them for openers. This is the third time I’ve seen the band (twice as Roadstar, once under their previous moniker of Hurricane Party) and they seem to get better and more energetic every time. The injection of new songs from their debut album The Grand Hotel alongside live favourites Killer and Get This and my personal favourite Last Survivor (criminally left off the album) served to inject an added level of interest for people who have seen them before, while maintaining a high level of energy for the newcomers.

After their set I noticed many people rushing off to buy the CD from the merchandise stalls, so their desired opening impact obviously worked a treat. Combining a modern “touch and feel” to with classic-tinged solos and riffs and over-catchy songwriting, this was the perfect stage for Roadstar to peddle their wares. A successful event for the young English boys and a fitting opener for the day. They still have a lot to learn from the likes of The Answer, though.

“ energetic ”

Setlist: Killer / Get This / Ready To Go / Last Survivor / Let’s Get It Started / Roadstar / Steam

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Ted Nugent

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Hands up everyone that likes listening to a loud-mouthed, obnoxious American rambling on. Didn’t think so. Unfortunately, as well as being a rock institution and a phenomenal guitar player, Ted Nugent is also a loud-mouthed, obnoxious American, and aside from his less-than-great singing voice, this fact severely let down his performance.

In terms of his (and his backing band’s) playing, Ted was nothing short of on fire. And he’s clearly thrilled to be out on the road in Europe again after quite a hiatus. His soloing was sensational. We all know about his raspy voice. It’s never been great, but it’s always done the job, and the same is true this time. However, he doesn’t shut up, and this is a problem. Referring to the crowd as “my limey friends” probably wasn’t advisable, but aside from that, half the things he comes out with aren’t even real words. But before, during and after every single song he couldn’t help but ramble something, meaningful or otherwise.

The term “Monsters of Rock” also seemed to hold great amusement for Ted, who constantly repeated the term when referring to the crowd, the event, himself and anything else that happened to pass by. I can’t wait for Damnocracy to get a clear run of time off from the various members’ other commitments, because with Sebastian Bach as front-man, the crowd won’t have to suffer quite so much of Ted’s raving and will just be able to enjoy his exemplary guitar playing.

“ on fire ”

Setlist: Stormtroopin’ / Wango Tango / Snakeskin Cowboys / Free For All / Wang Dang Sweet Poontang / KLSTRPHNKY / RawDogs WarHogs / Motor City Madhouse / Cat Scratch Fever / Stranglehold

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Queensrÿche

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Oh dear. Queensrÿche have just produced their best album in fifteen years. Their talent for making rock music in any style they choose and making it their own is unparalleled. Listens to Operation: Mindcrime, Empire, Warning and Tribe one after the other will showcase this. They’re also noted as a great live band. Yet their 45-minutes in the sun today were incredibly disappointing.

Essentially, what they did was play four songs apiece from their two concept albums, Operation: Mindcrime and Operation: Mindcrime II. While these are all great songs (the ones from the first album being better than the ones from the second), selected cuts from a story line are not the right things to play at a festival where you have a limited time on stage and where the majority of the audience are not your fans (yet). This is the time to come out and pack in as many crowd-pleasing sing-a-long songs as you can, and Queensrÿche failed. Following Nugent the crowd noticeably thinned as ‘rÿche’s set went on, leaving only the existing fans watching their heroes never really ignite.

Pamela Moore, the vocalist that plays the part of Mary in the Mindcrime story, accompanied the band to Europe and joined them on stage, costume changes and all, for the ham-fisted theatrics that go along with some of the songs and this did nothing to alter the crowds perception of the show. These aren’t entertaining Alice Cooper type theatrics, this is hands-to-the-forehead, over-the-top West End theatre stuff. This was a prime example of a great band letting themselves down in a big way. This, and their selected other festival appearances, was their chance to put themselves back on the the metal map after a string of poorly received albums (which are still great, just poorly received), but they failed on this occasion.

Special mention to the shock inclusion of Signs Say Go, which is one of the poorer songs on Operation: Mindcrime II, but was presumably chosen because it has a part for Mary in it. Not a good enough reason for me.

“ failed ”

Setlist: Revolution Calling / Operation: Mindcrime / Suite Sister Mary / I’m American / Hostage / The Hands / Signs Say Go / Eyes of A Stranger

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Thunder

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By stark contrast to Queensrÿche Thunder came out and showed the Chicago heroes just how it should be done. Their compact set featured high-energy hit after hit, with only the intros to Low Life In High Places and Love Walked In providing any respite from the sing-along marathon. That, and Danny’s (Bowes, vocals) announcement of the score line from England’s football friendly against Jamaica. Bowes has always been a natural at working a crowd, and this show was no different; the masses eating out of his hand within minutes, with more coming down from the raised sides of the Bowl as the set went on.

Thunder’s newer material fits so perfectly alongside the established classics that fans new to the band won’t be able to tell the difference in terms of quality and will enjoy everything equally, while people familiar with the older material will surely have their interest peaked by the new songs that they don’t yet know. The set was also expertly constructed. The band didn’t make the mistake of playing all the new material in one go, a tactic that often kills the momentum of a gig, and neatly mixed up new and old such that any song that came along which the majority didn’t know would soon be followed by one they probably did.

Just like Roadstar earlier in the day Thunder are likely to have acquired some new fans from this show, or at the very least prompted some people to buy a few CDs. They finished the thoroughly crowd-pleasing set by kicking several red footballs into the gathering of fans who had been cheering louder in the last hour than they had all day up to that point.

“ high-energy ”

Setlist: Loser / River of Pain / Higher Ground / Low Life In High Places / I Love You More Than Rock ‘n’ Roll / You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down / Love Walked In / Fade Into The Sun / Dirty Love

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Journey

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Difficult, this one. Journey didn’t get things off to a good start. Arriving by personal helicopter during Ted Nugent’s set, and departing by the same means during Alice Cooper’s, didn’t do much to endear them to the general masses, and that was before they’d even started. Most rock fans don’t have much time for that sort of unnecessary frivolity, but I don’t think anyone really expected Journey to appeal to anyone that’s not already a Journey fan.

Most people’s threshold of reasonably weak AOR pomp is only so high. Mine included, and after five songs of keyboards, clichéd ’80s lyrics and happy-clappy choruses I retired to the outskirts of the venue for some food. The Journey fans in attendance seemed to enjoy it though, and anyone with anything close to an open mind really must acknowledge the talent of guitarist Neal Schon and drummer Deen Castronovo. Schon’s soloing was nothing less than sublime, and Castronovo is still the same powerhouse he was when he recorded Ozzmosis with Ozzy Osbourne. I’d love to see Castronovo and Schon in a band that really rocked, playing much heavier, ballsier and more meaningful stuff than this.

Vocalist Steve Augeri was also in good voice. It’s just the songs. Some Journey fans were even heard to comment after the band’s set “too many girly songs”. Too girly for Journey fans is practically Westlife, so it clearly wasn’t just me finding it altogether too wimpy for Monsters of Rock.

“ pomp ”

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Alice Cooper

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There is no better showman in music today than Alice Cooper. And that has been the case since the early ’70s. The only shows that can now rival an Alice Cooper show for sheer entertainment are probably Rammstein and Madonna. Where Thunder needed to work the crowd in their usual expert manner, Alice doesn’t even really need to try.

In fact, as is standard practice now, he barely says anything between songs at all. No banter, no comments, no thank-yous. Nothing that interrupts the perfectly crafted flow of songs. And with this approach he managed to play more songs than anyone else; twice as many as headlining act Deep Purple. Of course, it helps that most of Alice’s songs are short, and that in the name of performance not many tend to get elongated with jams and such like, but even so, the volume of material given to the masses was immense.

Keeping the new material to a minimum (only two songs from latest album Dirty Diamonds and nothing from the previous three) made room for a constant stream of classics, which is exactly the way to approach a festival appearance. Keep the energy up, play the songs fair-weather or newer fans will know and slip a couple of new ones in as a tempting taster. Of course, when you’ve got the repertoire of theatrics Alice possesses it makes this process that much easier. With daughter Calico and a handful of other extras on hand to play various roles alongside Alice the band were able to play a constant backdrop to the various routines, the highlight being the mental home/killer medley in the middle of the set which featured brilliant instrumental passages (Eric Singer’s mundane drum solo excepted) and classic tracks seamlessly brought together amidst the usual straight-jacket/guillotine/resurrection affair executed (pardon the pun) with Alice’s typical professionalism. Even his entrance was exceedingly cool. The band began to play an intro and with a small explosion of smoke Alice simply appeared. Again, timed perfectly.

The setlist contained an excellent mixture of the three-facets of regular Alice: rock, ballads and ominous (i.e. Welcome To My Nightmare). The only thing missing was something really heavy from either Brutal Planet or Dragontown. On full dates on the current tour Alice has been doing Gimme from Brutal Planet, but that was omitted here, along with other regulars from the current set Between High School & Old School and What Do You Want From Me, presumably due to time constraints. This small quibble aside (given the relative weakness of The Eyes of Alice Cooper from which the latter two songs come, Gimme was the only song really missed), Alice’s performance was flawless (not “special” as the Total Rock DJ who came on stage afterwards said in a mildly camp tone after trying to endear himself to the crowd by repeating Alice’s now-trademark closing “What’s my name?”). Hopefully another arena tour isn’t far away.

“ perfectly crafted ”

Setlist: Department of Youth / No More Mr. Nice Guy / Dirty Diamonds / Billion Dollar Babies / Be My Lover > Lost In America / I Never Cry / Woman of Mass Distraction / I’m Eighteen / You Drive Me Nervous / Is It My Body / Go To Hell / The Black Widow > Keri Kelli guitar solo > Eric Singer drum solo / Feed My Frankenstein / Welcome To My Nightmare / The Awakening > Steven > Only Women Bleed > Steven > The Ballad of Dwight Frye > Killer > I Love The Dead > School’s Out // Poison / Wish I Were Born In Beverly Hills / Under My Wheels

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Deep Purple

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Like Alice, Deep Purple barely had to try in order to attract a sizeable crowd, and with energy levels mostly waning at this late stage of what had already been a long day, the English veterans jam style of rock show was the perfect way to relax and close out the festival. The introduction of the two big screens which up until this point had only been used to display notices regarding the local public transport, also helped some of the tired masses, meaning they were able to recline on the sloped sides of the National Bowl and view from a distance. Excellent camera work and some slick editing made this viewing experience very enjoyable, and perhaps a DVD may come of this performance in the future.

The setlist followed a largely similar order to the current tour setlist, including the frankly bizarre inclusion of Things I Never Said; a new song that until very recently had only appeared as the bonus track on the Japanese edition of Rapture of The Deep. The song is now available in Europe on the bonus disc with the new touredition of the album, but that hadn’t been released at the time of this show, which inevitably meant barely anyone knew it. Perhaps that’s why it was played second. However, the excellent Wrong Man, from the same album, was left out. Quite an oversight.

With many songs becoming long jam sessions, with rather a lot of soloing by various members, the set did start to drag a little around the middle. The horribly disjointed version of Fireball didn’t help matters, before a typically sombre When A Blind Man Cries did nothing to revitalise the energy of the crowd. To be honest, Lazy, Space Truckin’ and Highway Star didn’t do much for me either. The latter probably because it’s simply getting tired. Deep Purple have a massive back catalogue of excellent material, and yet tour after tour the same songs are trawled out. It’s a little disappointing, to say the least. Especially when Steve Morse, as amazing as he can be, really doesn’t do the Smoke On The Water riff any favours with his rather choppy approach to it these days. When he first joined the band his heavier version of many of the classics were a breath of fresh air. Now he plays some things with a little more ‘artistic license’, and particularly in this case, it’s not to the benefit of the song.

With a number of other tired songs in the list (Black Night and Strange Kind of Woman in particular) the set really lacked some interest. As always, the playing and singing was excellent (apart from on Fireball), but the spark was missing. At the end of the evening, however, it was just as enjoyable to relax and enjoy the playing as it was to jump around and feel the energy earlier in the day.

“ tired ”

Setlist: Pictures of Home / Things I Never Said / Hush / Rapture of The Deep / Strange Kind of Woman / Contact Lost > The Well Dressed Guitar > Fireball / When A Blind Man Cries / Lazy / Don Airey keyboard solo > Perfect Strangers / Space Truckin’ / Highway Star / Smoke On The Water // Black Night

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Photo(s): Chiaki Nozu | www.chiakinozu.com

Written by Andy Lye
More: Festivals, Hard Rock, Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Queensrÿche, Ted Nugent, Thunder