Fozzy & Hardcore Superstar 1/11/17
My, my, it's been a while! I've been to a couple of my friend's gigs locally, but this is my first signed-band's gig since Thunder back in March. I went to see Fozzy, co-headlining with Swedish rockers Hardcore Superstar, in Manchester on Wednesday.
It was very loud and very hot and I loved every single second! My hearing is just about returning to normal and while the sheer volume distorted a lot of the singing for me, I had an absolute blast!!
Myself and the lovely Tasha, whom had introduced me to the wonders of this band, had booked to attend their VIP event; being let in to watch the band soundcheck, and then have a meet & greet. The soundcheck was magnificent; they sounded so tight and I knew it was going to be a cracking night. We lined up to each have a group photo with the band a little while later, then reformed the line to have stuff signed. Throughout the soundcheck, we had so much fun! Rich was dancing about and started doing a two-step thing, from side to side, moving his head aswell, grinning at Tasha. I got a few silly faces from Chris and a lovely smile, and he even hopped onto the floor to get a few of us to sing along with him! He first targeted the guy stood next to me, then thankfully skipped over me completely and stood with Tasha, headbanging in approval of her angelic vocals as she belted out the lyrics to him. He stood with her for ages! He caught a few more people, getting them to sing, but definitely stood with Tasha for the longest, and returned to the stage. Later on he spotted Tasha's homemade phonecase, asking where she got it from. She mouthed that she had in fact made it and a couple of songs later, he actually asked to take her phone to show it to Rich, who took one look at it and exclaimed, "Aaaayyyy!", grinning and immediately looking over at Tasha, his face the picture of joy. It was so cute, and I loved the fact that Chris didn't even need to hint at whose it was; Rich knew straight away!
We danced some more to the rest of the soundcheck and had a huge group photo with the band; them on stage and us strategically grouped behind and in front of the barrier. Chris joked that it felt like a "School photo", which was right! I love the photo though; it's on his Instagram. <3
My group photo will always make me smile, purely because I look so small!:
I am the tiniest human bean...
When it came to my turn to get my photo signed, the bassist, Paul, asked me where I'd "come up from". I answered Liverpool and one of the guitarists, Billy, stared at me with confusion etched into every feature. My very Southern British accent obviously threw him off! It was so endearing. He recovered and told me that the band had spent their day off there; we agreed that it was a very beautiful city, and I moved onto the drummer, Frank, who wordlessly signed my photo and grinned at me. Up next was their lead guitarist, Rich, who smiled the most beautiful smile and called me sweetheart! He asked my name and then signed my photo, and I moved on to Chris, the singer, who asked my name aswell and then confirmed how to spell it (I guess you can never be too careful!), addressing his autograph to me and telling me to enjoy the show. After that we headed back out into the foyer of the Student Union, where the gig was being held, and waited inside to be let back in rather than queueing outside, which was nice! We were let in a little earlier than everybody else at around 7pm, and we managed to make it to the barrier, standing in between Rich & Chris.
The first support act of the night were a band called The Last Band, which is a clever name! They weren't my cup of tea at all; in all honesty, I couldn't wait for their set to be over! A bit too far over the 'heavy' line for me. There wasn't enough melody in their music and I tuned out because it all sounded the same. Up next was a singer known as Madame Mayhem. Now, she was absolutely fantastic! I fell head over heels in love with her strong, unusual vocals, outstanding confidence and presence onstage. Her outrageous outfit made it difficult to take your eyes off of her and I'm definitely going to be downloading her album when I can!
Then Hardcore Superstar exploded onto the stage, almost literally, and spent the next hour or so leaping about and entertaining the room with their wild antics and magnificent charisma. The singer's voice blew me away, and he even joined us a few times at the barrier, high fiving people and getting them riled up. At the end of the set he ran along the front row, high fiving everyone he could and I managed to get one! After their set finished, everyone calmed down a little as the stage was set up for Fozzy.
After what felt like an eternity, just after 10pm, the lights went down and the band walked onstage, minus Chris, starting the intro to their latest single & title track of their new album, 'Judas'. As the song built up, Chris burst out onto stage and the room when absolutely mental! From then on it was nonstop dancing, jumping, singing, screaming, shouting and waving. I had the most incredible time. As I said the sound did me very few favours throughout the night; a few songs sounded incredibly distorted as I've also already said, and during one songs I simply couldn't hear Chris at all, but that doesn't by any means take away from how thrilling the entire gig was! My favourite of theirs, 'Do You Wanna Start a War', started and I went crazy. It sounds even more magical Live! 'Enemy' and 'Sandpaper' were insane, with the whole room jumping and clapping, shouting and screaming on cue. 'Painless', another track from the new album, showed off Chris' vocals beautifully; he sounded better than I could have ever imagined, and the annoying things is that he was suffering with a slight cold! I couldn't tell at all; his voice (apart from when the music drowned it out, that is...) sounded as strong and naturally raspy as ever. He worked through it, sounding and looking fabulous the entire time. I'm in love with his stage antics; he's so very camp and flamboyant. He never stands still and it's mesmerising as he stomps his feet and sways his hips. Before a song called 'Spider in My Mouth', he donned the COOLEST light-up jacket EVER!!! i want one of my own; it looked so effective in the darkness and I got goosebumps as he slowly raised his arms in time with the beautifully creepy song-intro music, then the band all exploded into the full song as the lights came back up. So much happened; I'm randomly writing things as I remember them! For example, instead of going offstage before the encore, the band stayed where they were and Chris just plonked a towel over his head and told us to pretend they'd gone. Well, everyone knows they're gonna come back, right? What's the use in going offstage? So we just had to scream and cheer and chant as loud as we could to get them to 'come back'. Chris kept raising his arms, with the crowd raising in pitch in accordance before eventually ripping the towel away, and it was hilarious.
I got the whole band in!!!! SO happy.
Beautiful man. <3
LOOK!!! AT!!! THAT!!! JACKET!!!
It even looks cool in the lights!
"And I..................... am... David Beckham"
Rich, Paul & Billy. <3
The very rare sight of a drummer!!
"You know the band is coming back; the BAND know the band is coming back... so what's the point in going off stage? Just pretend we're not here and scream as loud as you can"
His microphone kept slipping down, so he just...
I ached everywhere by the time we braved going outside, and we waited around by the tourbus, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rich so that Tasha could say hello and get hugs and the like. We spotted Chris before anyone else in the band and approached him. He looked a tad annoyed to be constantly getting stopped by people wanting a photo; he wasn't feeling very well, so we simply congratulated him on such a fantastic gig when we managed to finally get his attention. He looked slightly relieved when he realised that we weren't holding bloody cameras, bless him, and we each had a little hug from him; I told him it was lovely to meet him and he said likewise before we let him go.
A little while later Rich came out and we caught him just before he got onto the bus; we stood chatting with him for a good half-hour about the gig, and he asked me where I was originally from (I think my accent is too much of a giveaway to the fact that I'm not a born Scouser). He asked about the Concorde 2 in Brighton, indicating how much he loved the venue, and we even chatted briefly about my holiday to Vegas after he brought it up, discussing how much of a great place it is, etc! He noticed we were getting cold & tired, so we had one last hug and departed for the night. He and Tasha are just the most adorable people together; she said they were the dream team, which Rich beamed at, and they really are! They shared some amazing moments during soundcheck & the show itself, my face hurt from grinning all the way through!! It's so heartwarming when bands so clearly love their fans like that. I got a few silly faces myself from Rich & Chris, and the guitarist from Hardcore Superstar sang to me & pulled some silly faces too!
We got back to the hotel shortly before 1am, discussed everything that had happened for well over an hour, and eventually got to sleep for a short while. I arrived home by lunchtime on Thursday and I'm still recovering today! The aches & ringing ears never stop being worth it though; it's a small price to pay for the best kind of release & therapy, if you will, as some see it.
My next adventure is so exciting that I have to control myself whenever I think about it: I'M SEEING QUO AGAIN!!! After last year's announcement that they would no longer tour other than the odd 'Aquostic' performance for special occasions and possibly TV appearances, I resigned myself to the fact that an electric gig wasn't going to ever happen again, and I'd have to stick with sitting on an annoying amount of 29 gigs unless I managed to find an Aquostic show near me. BUT THEY'RE NOT STOPPING, AND A SHORT ELECTRIC TOUR IS HAPPENING! I'm going twice! So that'll be 31, thank god. So UNTIL THEN (AAAAHHHH!!!!), Ta ta for now!! xx