By David O’Neill

Poster for Steelhouse 2024Well if my musings for day one didn’t inspire you to buy tickets then maybe those for day two will do something for you.

After the main event finishes on each night there is a disco that is driven by some of the DJs from Planet Rock: sometimes there are guest DJs – the past two years Shane Greenhall and Ronnie Huxford from Those Damn Crows have been running the  decks – so given that we will have two superstar DJ performers, in Elles Bailey and Toby Jepson, on site on Friday, who knows who will be gracing us with their disc spinning shenanigans. .

However, this is a preview of day two which kicks off with South Wales newbies and alt/pop rock quartet Zac And The New Men. Their stuff is bit grungy/alt rock but it is musically typical of the hangover band on Saturday morning. The last time I saw a band open up the Saturday at Steelhouse with a similar style was Mother Vulture and they blew me away so who knows if Zac has the hangover cure!

Next up is the Brighton-based band Creeping Jean, who we featured on our Singles Club a few days ago. They look and sound like a late ‘60s psychedelic band, so they are in the Steelhouse Wheelhouse.

James And The Cold Gun get the third slot on the Saturday afternoon, another alt rock band that has been appearing on many bills over the past year or so and I have seen them a few times. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. With a new single out, I may not have seen the best of these thus far, so I will go with open ears again.

Things start to get a bit heavier as the south coast invasion continues with hard rock/metal Bournemouth band South Of Salem. I have seen this bands several times over the years and they just get better and better. So I know this is going to be a great set for the fan (and the photographer) in me. If you are wondering what their music is like, if I tell you one of their other festival appearances is at Bloodstock, you’ll know if you like it heavy or not what it is going to be like…

The first international band on the bill is the Mexican born Villareal sisters aka The Warning. Well, hell what are we in for this afternoon? They are no sweet and innocent sisters: the instrumentation on the just-released ‘Six Feet Deep’ is HUGE! This is going to be a real WTF moment. This is going to really wind the crowd up. I am so looking forward to this. They are also on other festivals across the ÜK/Europe/ÜSA throughout July/August and September and are going to garner a huge amount of fans on that basis alone.

To really warm things up another favourite of the Steehouse Wheelhouse is Phil Campbell And The Bastard Sons, now with a stable singer in Joel Peters accompanied by Todd, Dane and Tyla Campbell. This is always going to be a great set. With ‘Kings Of The Asylum’ released last year Im pretty sure this is going to receive a very warm Steelhouse welcome.

The penultimate band for Saturday is the  German Thrash metallers Accept, if you haven’t heard any of their music I suggest a quick trip to any streaming platform and play ‘Balls to the Wall‘ as it is very AC/DC (and I’m pretty sure it will be the last track on the set. However, they also have a new album, ‘Humanoid‘, released this year. If you like your music as heavy as lead then you are going to enjoy this Germanic contribution to Steelhouse Saturday.

Saturday night headliners are none other than Newport’s own dreadlocked Starman, Benjji Webbe and Skindred. The last time they were on the mountain they were support to Saxon despite the pouring rain it was immensely entertaining and I LOVED it especially when the crowd all whipped their soaking wet T shirts off to perform the Newport Helicopter to ‘Warning! Warning!’ I have seen Skindred since at Download in 2022 when I was in the middle of the crowd when 80,000 people performed the same routine and it was a definite case of bringing that boom…

I’m really looking forward to this again this year… hopefully with the sunshine too (doubtful – Ed)!