High Voltage Festival 2011

With the inaugural High Voltage Festival in 2010 there were a lot of problems with the way the event was executed, which undermined the excellent line-up. Happily, for the 2011 edition, some of these were rectified and when the remaining kinks are ironed out, the 2012 edition could very well be the first class festival the organisers want it to be.

One of the first things to be addressed were the complaints about the ticket price, which was around as high for a two-day event as most other three-day festivals charged. So tickets were reduced to £99 for a two-day pass. However, this seemed to have a detrimental on the line-up. While the main Classic Rock Stage bill was easily as strong as 2010, if not stronger with acts such as Slash, Thin Lizzy and Black Country Communion in the middle of the day, and the UK festival exclusives of ZZ Top and ELP being replaced with Judas Priest on their farewell tour and one of the first Dream Theater shows with new drummer Mike Mangini, but the side-stage line-ups were substantially weaker. Especially the Metal Hammer stage where 2010 headlining slots from Black Label Society and Down were replaced with Neurosis and a ridiculously short 45-minute set from Electric Wizard. Great for fans of those bands, but a marked decline in both stature and widespread appeal; although Electric Wizard cancelled on the day due to travel problems.

Further down the bill on the metal stage high-status acts like Saxon, HammerFall and Opeth were not replaced like-for-like either. Indeed most of the bands booked this year are ones who currently open for the kinds of bands booked last year. The whole bill for the Metal Hammer stage felt like an afterthought, and the viewing numbers all weekend reflected this.

The Prog stage fared a little better, but not much, and overall attendance seemed to be about the same as the previous year. Changes to toilet facilities and drinking water availability were an improvement, but fewer high-quality food retailers was a problem, and prices for food and drink were high.

Perhaps the biggest problem last year though was the running order, which made very little sense and saw most bands overlap by silly, short amounts of time instead of properly clashing. The most obvious, logical arrangement for a three-stage festival is to clash the side stages on a one-to-one basis, and alternate those slots with the main stage. Instead everything was staggered so that each stage overlapped with at least one other. This simply meant the majority of people could only watch full sets by the bands they were interested in if they stuck exclusively to one of the stages. Everyone who attends festivals knows clashes are an inevitability, but the unnecessary overlapping simply infuriated. The 2011 running order was better, but still didn’t entirely fix the problem. The biggest mistake was overlapping Jethro Tull, who headlined the prog stage, with Dream Theater, who headlined the main stage. And by just 15 annoying minutes.

This is the final issue that really needs to be fixed for the next edition. At present, regardless of how much someone likes the specific line-up of bands for High Voltage, ticket holders can’t rely at all on a logical running order, and £99 plus fees is a lot of money to spend when what gets delivered at the end isn’t the subject of reason. The 2012 festival has been cancelled, with the Olympics hosted in London being blamed, perhaps to return in 2013.

Nevertheless, the bands more than did their part in making High Voltage memorable for 2011 at least.

Black Country Communion

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Joe Bonamassa and Glenn Hughes (with Heaven & Hell) both performed at High Voltage 2010, so of all the bands booked for 2011, the “supergroup” the two formed with Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian was probably the least surprising.

Since High Voltage 2010 Black Country Communion had released two albums in the space of just nine months, and were finally undertaking a period of touring after playing just three shows prior to the Summer of 2011. That meant that most fans had actually never seen them and therefore didn’t know what to expect from them in the live arena. In actual fact, Glenn Hughes is performing at what might be a career highest level at the moment, and Bonamassa is superb as the lead guitarist and co-frontman rather just as he can be as the single focal point of his own shows.

Just like when Hughes joined Deep Purple this means the group have two completely competent singers who can step up for a song at any point, each with their own rich back catalogues to be plundered, and contrasting styles which can be merged to great effect. So despite Sherinian’s near-anonymous status in the band, their performances are always strong and both front-men get their chance to shine, and to share the limelight. What let their set down ever so slightly was their song selection. While not a big problem for people who had never seen them before, it didn’t highlight the strengths of the band as well as it could have done. The main problem was that, with only 45 minutes on stage, including two covers wasn’t a very good idea.

Admittedly one of them was Burn, from Hughes’ time in Deep Purple, which many classic rock fans would have known, even if they were completely new to BCC, but with such little time to play with, surely the chance was there to play more than just three tracks apiece from their two albums. This was espeically true when they chose to play Bonamassa’s The Ballad of John Henry, which newcomers will then find they can’t get on a BCC album. Most BCC fans will likely agree that The Battle For Hadian’s Wall should have been in this spot. Nevertheless if not taking the opportunity to showcase even more of their material than they did was the only thing wrong with their performance, the day could be called a roaring success.

“ two completely competent singers ”

Setlist: Black Country / One Last Soul / Crossfire / Save Me / Song of Yesterday / The Outsider / Man In The Middle / The Ballad of John Henry / Burn

Dream Theater

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Dream Theater were probably the most requested progressive headliner following the 2010 High Voltage Festival, so booking them was almost a no-brainer for the organisers, but the departure of founding drummer Mike Portnoy and the appointment of former Annihilator sticksman Mike Mangini was destined to be the biggest talking point.

With the line-up change would also come a new album, but A Dramatic Turn of Events wasn’t due out until September so the real issue at that point was “how will Mangini perform in Portnoy’s shoes live, and what songs will they play?” The band had long been saying that they were no longer interested in rehearsing more songs than they needed and playing different sets every night, which disappointed many fans, but actually made the selections of songs they were going to rehearse all the more important. Perhaps more so than ever before.

Indeed there was no need to worry about Mangini. He seems to settled very well into the band and performed everything with even more energy and enthusiasm than Portnoy did towards the end of his time on the stool. So besides the recurring question over how good singer James LaBrie would sound this year (fine, was the answer), the songs were the most important thing, and the set chosen turned out reasonably balanced. Only one new song, On The Backs of Angels, the single already released, was included from the new album, while the rest spanned their whole career, including tracks from the last couple of discs, plus older tracks from the early ’90s like Under A Glass Moon and Caught In A Web, and fan favourites like Learning To Live.

Overall, as a band, Dream Theater’s performance was merely standard. Keyboard wizard Jordan Rudess had his usual self-indulgent solo spots with his keytar, LaBrie spent a roughly equal amount of time off stage as he did on it, and John Myung stayed out of the limelight as much as he physically could. Nevertheless, the extra passion introduced by Mangini helped them a great deal, and a standard Dream Theater performance is still a very good performance by its very nature. The set carried no surprises, so for anyone who had seen them multiple times before, they didn’t pull out anything particularly special, which was perhaps a let down as Dream Theater crowds always come back.

“ merely standard ”

Setlist: Under A Glass Moon / These Walls / Forsaken / Endless Sacrifice / Drum solo > The Ytse Jam / Peruvian Skies / The Great Debate / On The Backs of Angels / Caught In A Web / Through My Words > A Fatal Tragedy / The Count of Tuscany // Learning To Live

Judas Priest

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Their final world tour now over two months in, the question over Judas Priest’s performance was a simple one, given that all of the stories emerging from the earlier shows were nearly unanimously positive: would they (mostly Rob Halford) be wearing out or getting better?

As the only London show of the year (despite headlining arena dates in most other major UK cities) this was the only chance for fans from the immediate area to see the legends, just in case they don’t come back in 2012 before the tour ends, and attendance for their full-length set was reasonably good. Fortunately, the band delivered above and beyond what was expected of them.

In terms of performance, the answer to the question above was the latter. Compared to their performance right at the beginning of the tour at the Sweden Rock Festival, the band were even smoother and even more confident. Halford, still in great shape and voice, lead from the front and new guitarist Richie Faulkner now fits in absolutely perfectly, visibily growing in confidence as the tour rolls on, while the rest of the band are clearly equally confident in his ability to perform.

Although the brilliantly career-spanning setlist remains unchanged for the whole tour (occasional songs being cut on stops where they don’t have so long on stage), they did find themselves with a little extra time at the end of the set, and pulled out back-up encore track Living After Midnight to fill the time, much to the pleasure of the fans.

Priest’s showing must have ranked amongst the best of the tour and barely anyone left the first night of the festival disappointed with the headlining show they’d just seen. Given some of the other let downs during the day, like Thin Lizzy and Queensrÿche, a commanding top-bill performance was what the day needed, and Priest delivered admirably with a vibrant stage show and powerful individual turns. They justified their stature and then some.

“ delivered above and beyond ”

Setlist: Rapid Fire / Metal Gods / Heading Out To The Highway / Judas Rising / Starbreaker / Victim of Changes / Never Satisfied / Diamonds & Rust / Prophecy / Night Crawler / Turbo Lover / Beyond The Realms of Death / The Sentinel / Blood Red Skies / The Green Manalishi (with The Two-Pronged Crown) / Breaking the Law / Drumo solo / Painkiller // Electric Eye / Hell Bent For Leather // You Got Another Thing Comin’ / Living After Midnight

Slash

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Like Dream Theater, Slash and his solo band were one of the most requested acts for High Voltage 2011, so their announcement, one of the last ones for the event, in the special guest slot was very welcome. It’s likely though that the set he chose to play wasn’t so much.

Now regularly billed as “Slash featuring Myles Kennedy”, the former GN’R guitarist and the Alter Bridge front-man are very much a double act after Kennedy sang two songs for Slash’s all-star debut solo album and was then chosen as the live singer for any touring. Kennedy possesses a very strong vocal range but in actual fact he doesn’t really suit the Guns N’ Roses material particularly well. He tends to sound flat trying to sing that way, but what works in his favour is the audience’s familularity with the songs. They’re not paying as much attention to him as they do with songs they know less well, especially as so far they’ve only played the most well-known GN’R songs.

Apart from cuts from the solo album (and even then bassist Todd Kerns does the vocal for Doctor Alibi, originally featuring Lemmy Kilmister on the CD), Kennedy actually suits Slash’s Snakepit material better, and although the two albums Slash released with that band are amongst some of his most accomplished work, most fans are not aware of them. As such including three tracks from the second album in this set visibly turned off large parts of the crowd. In fact, only playing two songs from the solo album, neither of which were the singles, was very surprising, and giving those spots over to excellent renditions of choice cuts from Ain’t Life Grand, when most people had no idea what those songs were, didn’t work too well.

Slash and co. performed well, and had just a paltry 50 minutes on stage, but the song selection went in the opposite direction to the festival set ethos Thin Lizzy and Thunder adopted, which is to play as many songs most people should know as possible and don’t take risks. For people who know more about Slash than Paradise City and Sweet Child O’ Mine the set was a treat. There just weren’t many of them.

“ a very strong vocal range ”

Setlist: Been There Lately / Nightrain / Rocket Queen / Ghost / Mean Bone / Doctor Alibi / Speed Parade / Sweet Child O’ Mine / Slither / Paradise City

Thin Lizzy

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The buzz surrounding the newest line-up of veteran Irish rockers Thin Lizzy has been pretty high all year, with the vast majority of people citing it as the best since the death of talismanic front-man Philip Lynott, replaced now by The Almighty‘s Ricky Warwick.

The band is still lead by founding drummer Brian Downey, long-time guitarist Scott Gorham and keyboardist Darren Wharton, currently augmented by bassist Marco Mendoza and a rolling cast of second guitarists. Initially for this line-up Vivian Campbell took up this mantle but, recalled by regular employers Def Leppard, Campbell was replaced by Richard Fortus for the Summer touring, on loan from Guns N’ Roses.

After a string of highly successful dates earlier in the year, the booking of Thin Lizzy to High Voltage was met with widespread appreciation. However, somehow they contrived to under-deliver on the hype. Rolling out flat versions of obvious songs, unaided it has to be said by a pretty poor sound mix and a superfluous guest appearance on saxophone from Michael Monroe during Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in Its Spotlight), their whole set was a largely uninspiring experience.

Jailbreak, The Boys Are Back In Town and the obligatory Whiskey In The Jar cover, the only three Lizzy tracks many people know at all, were obviously greeted with the appropriate levels of applause, and proper Lizzy fans were happy with more or less every other selection as well, obvious as they were, but those with a passing interest, and those checking out the new line-up’s chops because they’re fans who have been turned off by previous post-Lynott line-ups, or are fans of Ricky Warwick anyway, mostly left disappointed by the combination of poor sound (not aided by the frequent cutting out of the stage-right speakers) and limp performance.

“ a largely uninspiring experience ”

Setlist: Are You Ready / Waiting For An Alibi / Jailbreak / Dancing In The Moonlight (It’s Caught Me in Its Spotlight) (with Michael Monroe) / Emerald / Whiskey in the Jar / Cowboy Song / The Boys Are Back In Town / Rosalie / Black Rose

Thunder

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Everyone knew Thunder’s retirement, announced in 2010, wouldn’t last long. The fact that they were tempted to play one more show after their “final show” at the Sonisphere Festival in July immediately showed they weren’t done yet. Then came the North American shows as part of their cross-country charity motorcycle trip, and a booking at High Voltage.

With Thunder, fans know what they’re going to get. Their performances are always high energy, entertaining and permeated with front-man Danny Bowes’ brand of humour. Plenty of audience participation is encouraged throughout, and the setlist will always be structured around the big hits fans love to sing alone to. At a headlining show the slots between the hits will often be taken by new songs and deep back catalogue selections. No two Thunder tours ever have the same setlists. However this one, with only 50 minutes of stage time, was far from their most imaginative.

On the one hand it was a festival set, which means playing to many people who aren’t necessarily fans of the band, and not having a great deal of time to get too adventurous. Therefore a set of hits is acceptable under those circumstances. However, if that’s the stance, when they pad songs out with to-and-fro between the band and the audience so that, for example, Dirty Love approaches 10 minutes, the sincerity of that ethos starts to fade a little.

Of course Thunder’s performance was as flawless as it always is, but for anyone who has seen the band a few times before, they didn’t produce anything particularly special, and using up valuable minutes with trying to get the audience clapping and jumping only meant less songs, which was a shame. Nevertheless, any Thunder set is better than no Thunder set, and those fans who were there will have left more than happy that they got to see one of the only shows of the year from a much-missed band.

“ always high energy ”

Setlist: Back Street Symphony / River of Pain / Higher Ground / Gimme Some Lovin’ / The Devil Made Me Do It / Love Walked In / I Love You More Than Rock & Roll / Dirty Love

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2011, Festivals, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Progressive, Black Country Communion, Dream Theater, Graveyard, Judas Priest, Queensrÿche, Slash, Thin Lizzy, Thunder