WOW – has it really been ten years since Jon put on the first Rockbitch show?
A whole weekend of music took place to celebrate that fact and it started off with Black Emerald from Reading.
It was an excellent opening featuring a pleasing blend of hard rock and heavy metal from a very talented trio. It was heavy enough for me and had good tempo, so they really deserved a bigger following but it was quite early.
Next up were The Clarity from Basingstoke who I have not seen in years - indeed I thought they had folded, but here they were again, large as life.
They’re a very tight pop punk band, with bags of talent, but a little too light for my tastes. Still it was a good idea to select a range of genres because Rockbitch do cover most musical styles.
The next band were Victorian Whore Dogs, another band I have not seen for a while. They are unequivocally heavy metal, with the emphasis on 'heavy', but they are also fairly quirky with it.
There was plenty of banter with the crowd, which you don't usually get from a band like this and I think they very quickly made a whole load of new friends and fans.
The mid point was taken by Reventure from Winchester, a truly amazing band who I think were playing Basingstoke for the first time.
They are like an early Enter Shikari, so a dash of pop, a dollop of electro and a bucket of hard-core, all mixed up to produce something really quite spectacular and unique in the local music scene right now. Their performance was lively to say the least and unforgettable, for all the right reasons.
Back to the metal with Biolith, a heavy metal band from Winchester only recently returned after some time in the wilderness. The crowd was well and truly warmed up by now and it was really feeling like a party now.
They played a good selection of both their older material and some newer songs, so there was something for everyone.
Main support came from Confessions of a Traitor and it’s amazing to think that this band has only been around for just over a year. But what a year - the impact they have made on both the hard-core and metal scenes cannot be understated.
They are a classic hard-core band, with all the usual ingredients, but they must also have a secret ingredient, which has boosted them higher. It was a total performance, a real high.
The headline band were Remnant from Reading, with duel male/female vocals delivering some outstandingly heavy metal.
The last time I saw them (which was in Reading) it was spoilt for me because of an insane amount of smoke - this night was perfect, no smoke, so 20:20 vision of a great band pounding out a killer performance. I hadn't even noticed that it had gone midnight and was past my bedtime.
Heads up to all the bands and to Jon and his rock bitches and the management and staff of the venue for a special night. I just had to recover enough for an even bigger show the next day.
Neil Duncan, ISSUEPUNKZINE
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