So tonight was my first time back in the Academy
at Bristol since I did the stint of three gigs
in one week at the venue back in April, so was
I glad to be back at the venue? Well yes because
my new favourite rock and roll band the Stone
Gods were there supporting Airbourne.
The first support band on tonight was a band called
Sound Of Fury but due to the queue getting into
the carpark tonight and then into the venue we
actualy missed these guys play. When we got into
the venue it was about 10 minutes untill the Stone
Gods were on stage so we went and made our way
to the main downstairs room to get our place to
watch the Stone Gods.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the
venue was there was a big age range in the venue
tonight which ranged from people between the age
of 20 - 50, which meant there were huge queue's
for the bars and equally long queue's for the
toilet as the majority of tonights strong 1500
crowd was drinking tonight. There weren't that
many teenagers in the venue tonight, the ones
that were in the venue were situated right at
the front of the venue against the barrier and
I am pretty sure you would be able to count them
all on your fingers and toes without a problem.
The thing with tonights bands is that both Stone
Gods and Airbourne have that cross over feel where
people who read Kerrang will love the bands and
also people that read Classic Rock also love the
bands and that's partly why tonights show attracted
such a huge age range of people.
 Stone Gods took to the stage at 8.40pm and had
pretty much a 40 minute set and what a set it
was; the band stormed through many of the songs
from their recently released debut album 'Silver
Spoons And Broken Bones' with frontman Richie
Edwards plugging the album midset telling the
Bristol crowd that all the songs being played
tonight are from their debut album which you can
buy at the back of the venue at the merch stall
for only £7 and I am pretty sure that a
lot of the people in the venue tonight took up
that offer as the Stone Gods played a huge set.
The Stone Gods are a really tight sounding band
that have the sound and feel that they have been
together for many years when really the band have
only been together for the best part of 2 years
now, they have a sound that would suit the massive
stadiums and they also have the stage pressence
to match that. Richie Hawkins is a bit of a guitar
genious strumming away with such passion, new
drummer Robin Goodridge has had his fair share
of success playing drums in the past for the Stereophonics
which could of only helped give him the confidence
he shows tonight, bassest Toby Macfarlaine plays
some big bouncy bass lines throughout tonights
set and front man Richie Edwards is a man totally
in his element, he spends the whole set knocking
out classic rock tunes one after another whilst
also making time for some jokes in between songs.
All the singles that the Stone Gods have released
so far were played tonight, 'Don't Drink The Water'
went down really well due to the fact that the
song is as fast as anything and merges punk rock
into the bands classic rock sound, you can clearly
tell Richie Edwards is giving it all with his
vocals shouting down the mic in such a clear fast
way and during this song is where Toby Macfarlaine
gets to show off his skills with his bouncy bass
line which Richie Edwards shouts to the crowd
encouraging them to jump to.
 The biggest hightlight of the set was when they
played their second single release 'Knight Of
The Living Dead', Richie introduced the song by
shouting into the crowd "Who wants to hear
something fucking heavy then" and then they
slammed off straight into the song, the song is
one of my favourite songs from the album just
for the fact that it sounds a lot different than
the rest of the album, Richies vocals are a lot
different, they sound quite raw here and really
remind me of Skin of Skunk Anansie, now I don't
know if that is a good or a bad thing that a mans
vocals remind me of a girl but I will leave that
up to you to decide. Anyway the song went down
really well and the jamming session towards the
end of the song was truly awesome.
After a big jamming session the band left the
stage whilst thanking the crowd and throwing drum
sticks and guitar picks to the lucky people in
the crowd that managed to catch them. Stone Gods
played like they should of been headlining tonight
and I thought that there would be no way Airbourne
would be able to beat the performance that Stone
Gods put on tonight.
 Airbourne took to the stage at 9.50pm and wow
i couldn't be more wrong, these guys surely know
how to rock, as soon as the lights went off and
the introduction music started the band ran on
stage with frontman Joel O'Keefe clutching a case
of 24 cans of Stella he started off with cracking
open a couple of cans and then throwing them into
the crowd, next the band went off into a 2 minute
long jamming session which was met with the most
insane lighting show I have ever seen at the Academy
in Bristol, I have allways been one to criticise
the lighting at the Academy because all they ever
shine is red lights that looks pretty awful and
like the lighting show is done by a bunch of amateurs
but tonight Airbourne had a crazy set of strobe
lighting that was flashing constantly for the
first 2 minutes as they were jamming, a lot of
smoke filttered out of the smoke machine as well
giving the band a really nice looking siluette
effect, as soon as the jamming was over the lights
came on pretty bright with big white lights lighting
up the stage majorly, Airbourne got straight down
to business and blasted right into their first
song and the whole of Bristol Academy started
bouncing about.
Now to be honest, before tonight I didn't know
too much about Airbourne apart from the fact that
I have heard their single 'Runnin Wild' and thought
it wasen't too bad but after watching tonights
performance I am a fully converted fan, they were
like a younger version of AC/DC on speed, they
were totally nuts and had more energy than most
bands today. Rhythm guitarist David Roads and
bassest Justin Street kept taking to each others
side of the stage to perform some dual movements
with their instruments and head banging whilst
playing their bits of the songs and front man
Joel O'Keefe spent the night full of energy bouncing
around the stage whilst knocking back cans of
Stella and shots of Jack Daniels before the show.
 I seriously think Airbourne should be sponsored
by Stella Artois, just think if he takes a case
of Stella on stage every show, he is drinking
and giving a lot of Stella to himself and the
crowd and at the same time he is promoting their
product to the thousands of fans that they play
to every night, the only point about it is that
the few kids that are in the audience tonight
might think that the Stella is giving Joel the
energy that he shows off tonight and might become
hooked themselves.
The songs that went down the best tonight were
'Girls In Black' which was a really heavy sounding
song which got pretty much everyone in the venue
jumping about, I am pretty sure even the security
were even tempted to show off their moves and
the other song was 'Runnin Wild' which they played
during the encore and yes they rocked hard during
this.
I am pretty sure that everyone left the Academy
tonight with a massive smile on their face feeling
that they got well more than their moneys worth,
as both the Stone Gods and Airbourne put on such
a big show, seriously I thought the Stone Gods
were going to be the best band of the night after
seeing there support slot and then Airbourne came
on and pretty much pissed all over them with their
fast, hectic engergetic ways.
Stone Gods 4/5
Airbourne 5/5
Review By Trigger |
Airbourne
