Sunday dawned with a beautiful sunny morning to welcome the hangovers.
Ashen Reach soon blew the cobwebs away. Its good to see another talented female drummer in Jess Stanley, (who reminds me a bit of Robyn Haycock from Stone Broken, big smiles and bigger “tub thumping”). Kyle Stanley has a bit of a Biff sound to his vocals and the guitarist Joe O’Sullivan is a photographer’s dream with his ginger dreadlocks waving in the air like Medusa’s snakes. Top that off with the riffage of Joe O’Sullivan and the metal rock sound is alive and kicking in Merseyside. I think Fighting for my life is a cracking track-very catchy and a great crowd sing along track. Breathless start to the day
These Wicked Rivers are a rock band from Derby who just ooze blues-based rock. If you haven’t seen these guys, you need to be on the field in time to get them. You might even recognise the overly cuddly figure of Dale Tonks on bass guitar from a previous incarnation with Wolfjaw who sadly lost Tom Leighton in 2021 after a short illness. The stage was dressed up like a grandmother’s living room with standard lamps and huge flowery light shades but that didn’t detract from the sound, a mix of southern blues and southern rock it was actually very well received by the growing crowd. They are touring pretty much every corner of the ÜK between now and the end of October so get along and see them you won’t be disappointed.
King Herd are a recently formed four-piece from Birmingham with an alt-rock feel and new music out soon. They carried on from where Ashen Reach left off and kept the crowd going with some really solid sounding tracks. I really like ‘Medicine’ and ‘Remedy’ from their current EP
Green Lung surprised me a bit. Listed as heavy metal and with Darren Reddick describing them as doom/stoner rock many in the audience didn’t know what to expect. There was quite a write up in the Steelhouse booklet that left some wondering if there was going to be a bit of Peter Gabriel/early Genesis costume changing set. However, they just came on in usual clothing. However, it was vocally much darker than many expected especially ‘Ritual Tree’ and ‘Reapers Scythe’. Whilst not enjoyed by some of my friends, I actually enjoyed it all. I never thought of myself as a doom/stoner fan but hey, I’m always open to new options
Diamond Head follow the heavy with NWoBHM, as heavy as a truck load of coal. They surprised many of the audience with their set and it went down an absolute storm with many of the assembled rockers. Unfortunately, I had to leave the set half way through to deal with a camera glitch so I only heard it from a distance.
How can you follow that other than with an Orange Goblin, heavy metal at its best. However, being a healthcare worker, I was a bit disgruntled by the rock and roll antics of vocalist Ben Ward spitting water from a bottle up in the air, admittedly over himself in the main but when he was on the ramp it did spill onto some of the audience. Given the difficulties the live music industry has had over the past two plus years, I did think this was a bit irresponsible. Despite that, the set was as heavy as I expected and with vocals akin to Lemmy you can guess what the sound was like.
Main support for Sunday is the one and only Michael Schenker, ex-guitarist of UFO, guitar wizardry at its best. I thought that Chris Buck in a mac was a bit strange but the right honourable Mr Schenker appeared in his customary fur hat with his white Flying V guitar to rapturous cheers topped that. The setlist included a large number of UFO tracks vocally supported by the superb original member of his band, Robin McAuley. However, it was a setlist that delivered guitar solo upon guitar solo that would have left many younger guitarists throwing down their instrument and sucking their thumbs rocking back and forth in the corner of their bedrooms.
It had been a beautiful sunny day and as the sun set in the west it was another trip up the mountain for Joey Tempest and the guys of Europe. Having seen them a few times in the past couple of years I had an idea how heavy they were going to be, and boy did they deliver.
A few trips up and down the ramp from Mr Tempest had many of the women in the audience swooning, and if he smiled at any of them… well I’ll leave that to your imagination. Before the set started, he asked a few in the audience what was their favourite Europe song: it was only a young lad of about 10 who had the guts to say ‘The Final Countdown’, when in fact many he asked may only have known that one because he didn’t get many answers!
If he’d asked me I’d have said ‘Walk The Earth’, which was good that he didn’t as they kicked off with that very song before launching into ‘Rock The Night’, which was a great start to the 90 minute set. ‘Scream Of Anger’ was followed by the ballad ‘Carrie’, which many people didn’t realize was a Europe song.
This was a well prepared, very well presented tour de force through the heavier years of Europe and many in the audience commented on this. Everyone waited and waited: ‘Superstitious’ came and went, as did ‘Cherokee’… then it happened. Altogether now… It’s the ‘Final Countdown’!
A fantastic weekend organized by a superb team of volunteers came to an end with fireworks and a late-night disco hosted by Ian Danter and Shane Greenhall and Ronnie Huxford from Those Damn Crows saw everyone on their way, tired but very happy.
Well done Steelhouse volunteers – best one yet! Now, how can you top that one next year?
- PHOTO CREDIT: All photos © Bandtogs/Über Rock. You can view our full gallery of photographs HERE.
- Steelhouse 2023 takes place over the weekend of 28 – 30 July. You can get your tickets HERE.
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