Metalheads Unite! \m/ \m/

[Susan Foreman]

Sadly, it seems that Sonisphere 2012 has been cancelled:

"...Unfortunately circumstances have dictated that we would be unable to run the festival to a standard that both the artists and that Sonisphere’s audience would rightly expect."

Sonisphere Knebworth is cancelled | 6th - 8th July 2012 - Queen, Kiss, Faith no More play Knebworth

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

It used to be that festivals lasted one day and every band was unmissable, now they last three days and you are lucky if you get two top bands a day.

Sonisphere's line up was very poor. Kiss and Faith no More headlined Download two years ago and the selection of Queen and Adam Lambert was quite frankly a joke.

[Rik]

Line up at Download is miles better anyway, shame I can't afford to go

[doolahrock]

Originally Posted by Demdike

It used to be that festivals lasted one day and every band was unmissable, now they last three days and you are lucky if you get two top bands a day.

Sonisphere's line up was very poor. Kiss and Faith no More headlined Download two years ago and the selection of Queen and Adam Lambert was quite frankly a joke.

Would have to agree with that. The fact that they charge extra for camping is a total joke as well, surely that's part of a festival.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Kerrang! magazine was thirty years old last month.

I used to love it in my teens and had it delivered for years. Unfortunately its little more than a comic nowadays and i haven't bought one for a looong time.

Metal Hammer writer Dom Lawson wrote this piece in the Guardian and to me it perfectly sums up the mag.



[Kerrang!'s 30th birthday is worth making some noise about Kerrang! may have lost focus in recent years, but the fact that it continues to thrive after three decades is cause for celebration


To its admirers it represents an oasis of ear-shattering good taste amid a celebrity-obsessed media. To its detractors it is a shadow of its former self or, perhaps more routinely, an irrelevant but dogged curio beloved of emos, moshers and moody youths in leather trenchcoats. One thing is undeniable: Kerrang! magazine will celebrate its 30th anniversary this week in comparatively rude health, seemingly impervious to the fashion and fortune of music it has covered for three decades.


First published on 6 June 1981, Kerrang! began life as a supplement issued with the well-established but lovably cantankerous Sounds music paper. It was initially conceived to celebrate the then flourishing new wave of British heavy metal, and the handful of commercially successful bands that predated and pre-empted it (including AC/DC, whose guitarist Angus Young graced it's first cover). Kerrang! catered to an audience who embraced hard rock and heavy metal culture, from the music to the cliched denim'n'leather uniform. The magazine made no bones about its self-imposed estrangement from mainstream music journalism.


That was its strength for a long time and despite an ever-changing music scene that has seen "old school" metal usurped by new genres, the fact that it still exists in 2011 says a lot about the strength of the culture it originally elected to support and the resilience of the writers and publishers who have kept it going.


Admittedly, in recent years Kerrang! has appeared to alter its focus, pursuing a younger and more fickle audience. It has embraced bands who subscribe more to the soft-focus, pop-friendly aesthetics of boybands than to anything discernibly rock'n'roll, while seeming to cast a disdainful eye on the diehard metal culture that Kerrang!'s rival, Metal Hammer, has snatched from its grasp.


I am hopelessly biased, however. I worked for Kerrang! for seven years and though I applaud what the magazine once represented, one of the main reasons I jumped ship to Metal Hammer a few years ago was because the winds of change were clearly blowing the senior publication into territory to which I, as a self-confessed and cheerfully stubborn metalhead, could no longer relate. Kerrang! has become the rock equivalent of once-great pop bible Smash Hits – albeit nourished with Green Day and 30 Seconds to Mars rather than Culture Club and Wham! – and while I recognise the value in such an endeavour, its evolution betrays a lack of understanding of metal culture and what it means to its adherents.


Magazines have to change to survive, particularly in an age when fewer people buy them, but metal's atavistic nature is not open to negotiation. Once you "leave the hall", to quote more-metal-than-thou titans Manowar, there is no re-entry.


What Kerrang!, Metal Hammer and a handful of like-minded magazines continue to prove is that the mainstream media's coverage of real rock (as opposed to U2 and Coldplay, in case you harbour the delusion that such neutered twaddle qualifies on any level) and metal is of no great consequence to a vast audience that is going nowhere any time soon. You only have to look at the popularity of bands such as Iron Maiden, Metallica and Bon Jovi to see how the media consistently miss a trick, generally preferring to hype up the latest gaggle of indie, dance or pop no-marks, few of whom will ever boast the following or the record and ticket sales that many rock and metal bands generate year after year. Most UK magazines refuse to take hard rock and metal seriously, preferring to wheel out the same old Spinal Tap references and jokes about Ozzy Osbourne's bat-munching exploits rather than acknowledge the sheer diversity of heavy music and the remorseless passion of those who choose it as the soundtrack to their lives. Kerrang! and the magazines that follow in its footsteps exist to redress the balance and to give credit where it's due. For that alone, this anniversary is one worth celebrating.]

[Nordicdusk]

I used to love Kerrang! when it was a Metal Mag

I would get so excited going to pick it up and read every last word from cover to cover. Its a shame how it changed so much but im sure it has a target crowd that love the bands in its pages. Atleast its doing for them what the mag did for me in my teenage years.

[Demoncrat]

This accurately describes how I feel at the moment

[Justin101]

How have I not seen this thread before! I've been into Metal since 1989 where at the tender age of 12 I saw Iron Maiden on 'The Chart Show' - Remember that? haha

First gig for me was Metallica at the Manchester G-Mex in 1992, I remember going straight from school and getting changed on the way, I still have the ticket in my memory box, £15.00 I think it was - quite pricey for the time!

Progressed through the ranks quickly via Sepultura to death metal, Kerrang seduced me into Black Metal with the whole Burzum Vs Mayhem story and I followed Cradle of Filth from playing to 50 in a basement in Liverpool supporting Emperor to being one of the biggest bands in the UK (which wasn't really good creatively for the band!).

I don't really listen to extreme metal any more, i will put some stuff on as a blast from the past like At The Gates or Dissection or a bit of Carcass, but these days I find more solace in thick groovy metal like Black Sabbath or Mastodon! Although my favourite is still Iron Maiden! And a band that's stayed with me since my extreme days is Opeth which have grown with me and are now one of the greatest progressive bands on the planet

Yeah Metal!

[Justin101]

This is the Kerrang! that changed everything for me as a 16 year old...

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by Demoncrat

This accurately describes how I feel at the moment

An ok song from an excellent band. Prefer a bit of Fantomas myself at the minute though



By god I love Mike Pattton