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| O.C. swinging his balls for the cause |
Whilst the tinge hanging in the air of masses of hippies arriving in Cheltenham for the tree hugging festival that is 2000 trees was getting stronger,elsewhere, starting with Cardiff, metalheads were gathering for The Headbangers Balls tour.Twelve dates spaced out over four weekends involving over 40 of the best unsigned metal bands in the UK raising awareness for testicular cancer.
Bison, our vocalist in Reign of Fury,has been cancer free for 5 years and we wanted to celebrate so Pilko,our manager,has done an outstanding job and put this tour together.The man is a bloody legend!
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| Now that is an awesome tour! |
12th July-Cardiff Bogie's
For a change it wasn't raining,it was fucking boiling!We managed to load our gear in the van an hour late due to traffic on the M5.
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| That van won't pack itself |
Luckily we were in no rush so no major problems.Fudge (our driver) had already picked up the drum kit and cymbals Pilko had managed to source for the tour (courtesy of Tom at Music Box Cardiff) so that saved a bit of time.
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| Ed becomes the 1st sleeping beauty of the tour.There will be others! |
After a fair bit of piss taking in the van we got to Bogies and loaded down the most awkward staircase ever.Gear in and "fuckin' hell! We've forgotten the t-shirts!"Great start.Fuck it,at least Pilko had brought the Headbangers balls shirts with him.
We set up and briefly sound checked.Matt and Pilko had managed to get John Henry's backline company to lend us some ENGL guitar rigs too!
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| Earl,open for business. |
All done,it was time to wait for doors to open and hope that the word had spread.Pilko had done his best,got some ads in terrorizer mag,radio stations have been plugging the tour as much as possible,all we could do was hope.And Cardiff didn't dissapoint!There was a wicked turn out and the overall vibe from the other bands and punters was amazing.Everyone seemed to be behind the whole thing.TRIAXIS,BLOODSHOT DAWN and FELL ON BLACK DAYS played storming sets.If all the bands were gunna be this high quality,this is gunna be a tour to remember.
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| Fell On Black Days opened the show |
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| Triaxis smashing it. |
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| Bloody loving it |
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| Reign of Fury |
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| We had a stormer of a show. |
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| Bloodshot Dawn.Def the right band to headline the night. |
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| Great 1st show line up |
We packed up quick time as it was a bloody super disco loadout and headed off to our hotel.Fudge lives in Cardiff so he went home which left me and Jon fighting over the double bed in our room.I won.
We put the telly on,watched the end of Jarhead,took the piss out of each other then on came Good Charlotte.They really are a bag of shite!Time to sleep.
Magic Dave.
(Bristol Magic Moments coming next as soon as I get my arse into gear.)
(Pics by Geoff Baehr unless otherwise marked)
