Northeast Music Guide

"We Love Elvis, We Utterly Love Nirvana"  : What's Not To Like? "Basically we love Elvis," enthuses Danny Cobain, vocalist in Elvana, "and we utterly love Nirvana and we hit upon the idea of combining the two" Elvana are a local Elvis fronted tribute to Nirvana, they've been playing their trade in Newcastle for 2 years and in that time they've done many awesome shows including headlining the Academy. "Some people don’t quite know what to expect at first," explains Danny, when asked about what the crowd thought, "after one song people get it and then they really enjoy it!" Elvana's next gig is a bit of an interesting one.  They are playing the Cluny on Saturday 5th of March with Tragedy : A Heavy Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees. "You can expect to be covered in glitter and not be able to stop smiling for days," promises guitarist Royce from Tragedy, "You may hate disco. You may hate metal. ...

A Night of Rocking Tunes and Also, Lovely Hair! The bands and audience gathered at Trillians for the first heat of the competition to get the chance to play Bloodstock Festival. It was a superb night of diverse styles of rock and metal, with every band giving an outstanding performance.  My personal marks out of 10 for the competing bands: Shards of Ruin….dramatic guitar and falsetto vocals reminiscent of Helloween. Great looking band. 7.5 Guilt City….fast guitars, volume up to 11. Harmonising riffs and aggressive tones. Still somehow manage to be catchy and worth putting on in the car. 8.5 Black Nevada have evolved and  polished their sound and have a danceable hard rock style in the same musical continent as Papa Roach. They have really grown musically since I last saw them.8 Dogsflesh… tuneful thrash,  had me thinking it's years since I listened to that Nuclear Assault album...

THE ROAD TO BLOODSTOCK STARTS HERE... We are just days away from the very first Newcastle leg of the Bloodstock Metal 2 The Masses competition. Metal 2 the Masses is an annual, regional, competition where the winner of each region goes on to play at Bloodstock Festival on their New Blood Stage. This has proven to be a big opportunity for many bands, with bands such as Evile, Bloodshot Dawn and Saturnian signing major deals or going on world wide tours. A total of 25 bands will pit their way through the rounds aiming to make it to the final and then on to Bloodstock. The final takes place in The Cluny on June 17th, but before that, bands have to navigate some tricky heats and semi finals. Black Nevada "Some of these groups are going to be really tough," enthuses Kev Morris, of RFTK Promotions, who are organising the events for this region, "But in being tough, it's going to be exciting as fans are sure to get a night of good quality bands - and bands...