Orange Goblin / Solace / Firebird – Manchester 15/12/10

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Sound Control, Manchester 15/12/10

Tonight marks the first show on Orange Goblins 15th anniversary tour, the ever reliable Future Noise lot put this one on in the relatively new venue sound control, which is a nice departure from Moho Live which is normally where a gig this size would be put on, the biggest issue of the night being the PA system being slightly outmatched to the bands and the beer prices being insane.

Firebird kick things off in a slightly unconventional way, providing the audience with a slab of blues/hard rock. The band fronted up by Carcass and Napalm Death legend Bill Steer manage to keep the audience entertained throughout their fairly long set. There’s no end of bands influenced by this type of early 70s hard blues but not many who emulate it as well as Firebird. Slightly odd was the fact that even though they where the opening band of tonight’s proceedings there was still a drum solo by Spiritual Beggars drummer Ludwig Witt, Firebird end things off with Steer breaking out the harmonica for a last song.

Firebird

Next doom metal veterans Solace take the stage however are mired by the sound at the start of the set, as the drums drown out everything, Solace are indeed a band seemingly plagued by bad luck. Things improve later on but sadly not enough to save the set entirely. Like Firebird they have a long set for a support band and are received fairly well. It’s just a shame as they are a band who I’d look forward to seeing with a better sound behind them.

Solace

Finally it’s the heroes of the hour, I’ll be honest having seen Orange Goblin three times before at various festival appearances I didn’t expect much but I was surprised when they came onstage launching into “Monkey Panic” and the place exploded, Goblin are evidently a band who improve vastly when headlining their own shows with fans that can truly appreciate their beastly stoner sound. Vocalist Ben Ward always looks exited to be on stage and he informs us tonight that the majority of the set will be old stuff they haven’t played in a long time which receives no complaint.

Orange Goblin

As they proceed to make their way through a set full of classics with the crowd never getting tired of singing along. The venue not being used to metal gigs had some bouncer’s futility attempting to stop the pit which wouldn’t have been that dangerous if the bar hadn’t been serving people glass bottles that now littered the slightly uneven floor. Goblin ploughed through a set including “Magic Carpet”, “They Come Back”, “Quincy The Pigboy”, “Blue Snow” and “Some You Win, Some You Lose” before retiring backstage to await the inevitable cheers for more which they heeded. Goblin came back and played the rather mellow “Time Travelling Blues”, before asking the crowd if they where Sabbath fans and starting up “Symptom Of The Universe” which they just had contributed to a Sabbath tribute CD for Metal Hammer, it probably received the biggest reaction of the night, it’s not original but any early Sabbath will please a doom crowd, me included. They end the set off with “Scorpionica” a good way to end the set and a good way to end the year.

Scribed by: Drian Nash
Photos by: Lee Edwards