Enough of the portents of doom (and we haven’t even mentioned rain or mud, yet) and on to the good news. Here at musicOMH we like to support the underdog (it’s called an inferiority complex). So, Axl & co can wait – God knows we’ve had to wait long enough for him – and instead we’ll start elsewhere.
Snickers Bowl Stage
Friday 9 June sees the delightfully named Gay For Johnny Depp – featuring former members of Garrison and Instruction – bringing their chaos-core to headline after the Bloc Party-gone-nuts antics of Keiko and the metalcore madness of Sintuition.
On the Saturday – and just to show that metal fans also like a good troubadour – the young Sam Duckworth, aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, acts the superhero with his guitar, a laptop and some politics. It’s fair to say that his set is unlikely to resemble the preceding skate-punk of getAmped or the art-rock of Scottish feistmeisters The Hedrons.
For Sunday’s finale, old skool metallers Viking Skull (Raging Speedhorn in disguise, but you knew that) will doubtless put in a suitably tongue-in-cheek performance to offset the serious prog-metal of Sweden’s Evergrey and the teenage confessions of goth lady-in-waiting Betty Curse.
1. Axl trying to be G ‘n’ R without Slash.
2. England vs Paraguay, somehow.
3. Henry Rollins – better than a stand-up comedian.
4. Unsung bands like Alter Bridge and Blindside.
5. Metallica vs Korn vs Trivium on Saturday.
Snickers Stage
Where the Snickers Bowl Stage is like a snack, the Snickers Stage proper is much more of meal. Friday’s line-up is a tale of two courses. The first is dreamland for those who judge gig quality on the number of bruises obtained: Throwdown, Bleeding Through, funk-nutters Fishbone and veteran sludge-rockers Clutch (with the rather incongruous Dredg in-between). The second, on the other hand, is altogether sweeter but not necessarily tastier, with The All-American Rejects following Sevendust, InMe and Atreyu.
Saturday is when the rock aristocracy start coming out to play with Henry Rollins literally the centrepiece with another self-deprecating, politically-incendiary but always laugh-out-loud funny, spoken word set.
 Henry Rollins. | | On the Snickers Stage, Henry Rollins is “literally the centrepiece with another self-deprecating, politically-incendiary but always laugh-out-loud funny, spoken word set.” |
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