GIG: Kings of Thrash (Nuneaton)

KINGS OF THRASH “The MEGA Years” features GRAMMY® Award winning bassist David Ellefson, along with guitarist Jeff Young, reuniting to perform the early Thrash classics upon with the genre was built and defined in the 1980s. Showcasing the songs from the Killing is My Business…and Business is Good & So Far, So Good…So What albums in their entirety, Ellefson & Young stay true to material not performed live in several decades, along with the spirit of the era which launched one of the greatest genres of heavy metal music.

Frankly, after the steaming pile of shit that was Abaddon UK, Kings of Thrash really couldn't miss. They merely had to be competent. And they were. Dave Ellefson has always been a likeable sort and I was pleasantly surprised by the singer/guitarist chap, who did a pretty good job of sounding like a younger Mustaine...

Rose said he gurned too much, but I honestly didn't notice at all, and then we have Jeff Young. Wow, what an odd little man he is. First of all, I know it shouldn't matter but don't play a thrash gig with a stupid weird jazz guitar with no headstock and 2/3 of a body. It doesn't matter that it looks dumb, the bigger problem is it doesn't sound right.

Years ago I made the same mistake and bought a Hohner copy of a Steinberger. It was a cool guitar but I could not get it to sound right trying to play thrash and neither could Jeff. Too much delay, not enough oomph and not enough distortion... and also, Jeff isn't a great rhythm player either. He can solo, but riffing is not his strong suit.

He also has a rather strange manner, coming across as arrogant and/or possibly drunk... he certainly wasn't put off by the sparse crowd and played the Queens Hall like he was back at Donington. I know you have to believe in yourself if you are on stage and all, but he came across like a bit of a twat. You played on one Megadeth album, right... and not one of the top, top ones. You are the Vinnie Vincent of Megadeth. Learn some humility. At this point I feel like Dave Ellefson has saddled himself with a bit of a clown,

I forgot to mention the drummer. He was good. No one needs a drum solo, but his was pretty good and don't think I didn't spot your Neil Peart rips matey cos I did. Respect for pulling those off. 

Despite what the website said, Killing is My Business was not played in it's entirety, in fact it was barely even touched on, which was a shame. In fact the only song they played from that was Rattlehead. 

We were trying out our new Loop earplugs tonight. It was weird, but nice not to get home with ringing ears. Overall it was enjoyable, even if at times I wondered exactly what Jeff was playing. Perhaps it would have helped if the other guitar had been a bit louder, because as I said riffing is definitely not Jeff's strong suit.

To be fair too Jeff he made a decent fist of Marty's epic solo in Tornado of Souls, but he had to go and throw it back in our faces by flexing his bicep after it. What a cock. The band threw in a cool cover of 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' but unfortunately it didn't really suit the singer's voice.

SETLIST: Rattlehead / The Conjuring / Into the Lungs of Hell / Set the World Afire / Anarchy in the UK / Mary Jane / 502 / In My Darkest Hour / Liar / Hook in Mouth / Good Mourning / Black Friday / Dawn Patrol / Tornado of Souls / Murders in the Rue Morgue (Iron Maiden cover) / Peace Sells...

SPACEX: Satellite Deployment

Not actual photo

On the way home from the atrocious Abaddon UK gig we saw a deployment of Starlink satelites over Fleckney. We didn't know that at the time of course, it was God damned freaky! At least there was an easy answer and we don't spend the rest of our lives telling people we saw a UFO!

GIG: Abaddon UK (Nuneaton)

I've attended about 370 gigs over the last 43 years and I've seen some amazing shows, some mediocre shows and some poor shows... but I've never seen anything quite this bad.

Actually, let's back up a bit there and clarify that as we only arrived as Seventh Son were finishing up their set. I don't know what had gone on but there was supposed to be an interval between 8:30 and 9:30 for the raffle etc, but we got there just after 9PM and Seventh Son were still playing. They were pretty decent really, quite entertaining, especially the singer - very Saxonish, easy to listen to and generally pretty professional.

Clearly things were not going to plan as the organiser came on stage to tell them to wrap it up and we were advised there was to be no interval and that Abaddon UK would be coming on as soon as possible.

Well, there followed 20-25m of 'soundchecking', which was about as shambolic as could be, while Abaddon himself sat stock still behind the drums, possibly despairing of the circus going on around him. At least I hope he was despairing...

There seemed to be way more people in this band than was necessary, three guitarists and two bassists for a start, for a band that was originally a three piece that seemed a little excessive. But it wouldn't have mattered if they could play the songs well (spoiler - they couldn't). 

They started with Angel Dust... I think, I can't even really remember, it was one of the faster songs off Welcome to Hell anyway, and it was a fucking mess. The 'singer' (if we can call him that) was way off and basically just mumbling. Even Rose could tell something was up, which is not really surprising because at one point the singer was singing the chorus and the band was playing the verse.

In Nomine Sathanas was better, because it was slower, but it wasn't good. Don't Burn the Witch is one of my favourite songs of all time, and listening to this version made me want to leave, but we stuck it out for a few more songs. Die Hard wasn't too terrible, but it was just awful hearing these legendary songs being performed so badly.

At some point the guitarist on the left fucked off and another guy replaced him. This guy seemed a bit more clued up (he could play the solos a lot better and his guitar didn't sound like a sack of shit) but even then it wasn't brilliant. It also made you appreciate how vital Cronos' vocals were to the Venom sound, and what a great job Tony Dolan does of doing those songs justice for Venom Inc!

Abaddon himself seemed to play just fine, I just can't understand how he managed to assemble such a lacklustre bunch to play with him. I mean I haven't touched a guitar in over ten years and I think I could still make a better fist of some of these riffs....

After about half an hour the shambles reached its nadir. The band were clueless and stumbling around the stage like they were at a rehearsal, meanwhile the crowd was withering by the second and it must have halved from when we arrived. We decided we'd seen enough. I couldn't ignore the possibility that they might try and play 'Seven Gates of Hell' and I couldn't let them butcher that, so it was either storm the stage or leave. So we left.

The strangest thing to me is that Abaddon can't find decent musicians to play with him. Honestly I haven't seen anyone play this badly in years, and other gigs that we previously considered the 'worst ever' seem positively mediocre by comparison.

Sure, Crown of Thorns played their songs 'differently' than the album versions and that was annoying. Sure Sentenced phoned their performance in, and sure 'Dressed to Kill' sucked last time we saw them (in Nuneaton, strangely enough), but even that was like watching Dream Theater at Rock City compared to this.

If it hadn't been a charity gig I think we'd actually have asked for a refund, it was that bad. But oddly the comments on Facebook were positive. How I do not know, because this was plain bad. Like had these people ever actually played together before? 

Interestingly I watched a video of Abaddon/Mantas at Keep It True and what a difference. Sure, Mantas' guitar was out of tune and he struggled a bit with some of the faster parts of 'Die Hard' but the guy singing was excellent, a perfect replacement for Cronos. Still not great though if I'm honest... what a shame.

ESCAPE ROOM: Escape the Wild West (Milton Keynes)

Escape Hunt has been a mixed bag for us so far, the Aladdin room was one of the best we'd ever done, but the Alice in Wonderland one was a bit sucky (not to mention a health and safety liability!). But thankfully I can report that Escape the Wild West (while not as enjoyable as the Aladdin room) was definitely worthwhile and enjoyable. 

The only slightly annoying bit was the last part which was rather difficult to do with just two people, but we got there in the end and overall it was a thumbs up.

ESCAPE ROOM: VX 2.0 (Trapp'd Kettering)

After the splendid time we had last weekend doing the 'Abigail' escape room at Trapp'd Kettering, we thought we'd go straight back and do the room that we originally wanted to. Well, honestly I'm glad we did Abigail first because I'm not sure we would have gone back to do it after this. We really struggled with this one and apparently we were only about half way through when we ran out of time. 

There were good bits to it, but we seemed to just hit dead end after dead end after dead end and after about 40m we were feeling pretty deflated. It's a shame because 'Abigail' was one of the best rooms we've ever done, I think we're more suited to physical puzzles and whatnot, as soon as they start involving technology it seems to go a bit wrong. Oh well, never mind.