Untitled Document

They kicked the gig off with good renditions of the Scorpion’s ‘Rock You like a Hurricane’, Judas Priest’s ‘Living after Midnight’ and Iron Maiden’s ‘Bring Your Daughter… To The Slaughter’. It’s very rare that club’s get to hear much Iron Maiden but it’s fair to say these guys did them justice and it proved just how accomplished they are as musicians. Next came the band’s version of Thin Lizzy’s classic ‘Emerald’ which featured a quality double solo between guitarists Chris Shaw and Mick Hawarth, followed by Ozzy’s ‘Mr Crowley’ and AC/DC’s ‘Hell Aint A Bad Place’.

It has to be said that the crowd during the bands performance were really enjoying themselves and were singing and cheering them on throughout the songs. The end of the first set approached and the band decided to finish on another Maiden hit – ‘Number of the Beast’, complete with the famous “Woe to you, oh Earth and Sea” intro, before finishing on their highlight of the first half – a superb rendition of the Black Sabbath classic ‘War Pigs’.Everyone had clearly enjoyed the first half - I definitely had! With such agreat mix of classic tunes amongst one or two rarely played songs, they could not go far wrong.

Gremlins had hit the band during the first set with a couple of lighting and sound problems however they were sorted out during the break and when they took the stage to start the second set, opening with Black Sabbath’s ‘Heaven and Hell’, the changes were marvellous and had made a huge impact, making the sound more rich and full. They recreated the awesome Metallica tones in their rendition of ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘Am I Evil’, both of which featured some great vocal work from lead singer Gary Agar, before moving on to play AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ and Bad Company’s ‘Feel Like Makin Love’ which went down great and had the audience down the front singing and dancing and helping to create a brilliant atmosphere.

The band brought us more songs from Gun, The Cult and Black Sabbath as well as Led Zeppelin’s ‘Rock n Roll’ which saw some really good work in the rhythm section by Carl Stretton and Chris Reynolds (bassist and drummer respectively). They made a great choice by ending the second on two awesome songs – Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ and Billy Idol’s infamous ‘Rebel Yell’. After the last chord had been struck, the audience were roaring for more and the band returned to the stage for a thoroughly well deserved encore of songs from The Undertones, Motorhead, Megadeth and the Bellhouse anthem – AC/DC’s ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ which saw the room shouting out for ‘Angus’.

After such a tremendous second half display plus some fantastic encores, the band returned to the stage to huge applause for one last song – Van Halen’s version of the classic ‘You Really Got Me’. Overall, a mega night from Metalworks! Not only did they entertain the whole club in one hell of a good gig, but they proved just how well so called ‘pub bands’ can shine in the club atmosphere. Well done guys!

RotN Editor: Thank you Carl for this excellent review and many thanks to Steve Mitchell.