Finally a festival where Italian people can see the unluckiest bands of the big movement called New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). In the early eighties only Maiden, Saxon, Leppard and Venom played here and now for the first time we can see Diamond Head and Angel Witch, two of the most influent bands of the entire metal world.
The day started with the bad news about Weapon. They missed the show because they missed their flight and the opening band were Elixir!! They played a good show, full of old songs from their first album Son Of Odin and also from the very new CD All Hallows Eve like the title track!! An excellent way to open this festival!!!
Now it's time for the Steve Grimmet's Grim Reaper and Rock You To Hell open the gig for these four men and the crowd just sang along this anthem!!! Time is not a friend of men, sometimes, and Steve's voice is not like 26 years ago, but the songs are really great and Lust For Freedom, Don't Talk To Strangers - a homage to the great R.J. Dio - and the final See You In Hell (a real anthem!!) was really amazing!! Another emotional gig for Grim Reaper!!
Now it's Demon time!! They now sounds more hard rock than their first album because they have a keyboard player on stage, but the energy is still high!! Dave Hill and his pals start with Night Of The Demon, and their live set include a lot of classic stuff like Commercial Dynamite or Into The Nightmare. They played an excellent show until the final Don't Break The Circle. As you can read all the songs are taken from bands that have more success than their original performers, and the list is not over..... NWOBHM was an incredible period for our music!!
Now it's time for the 'Italian intruder' of this festival: Crying Steel! This band born in 1984 and made 1 EP and 2 full-length albums. So they started in the same period of these English bands, but earn less than nothing, and this is really bad because songs like Raptor, First Time Don't Lie or the old stuff Thundergods and Hero need more attention from you guys!!! Please open your eyes and look for something about Crying Steel on YouTube or buy their albums!!
Now Diamond Head hit for the first time an Italian stage and for the first time in this festival the music is not so heavy..... a big Zeppelin atmosphere is among us at songs like It's Electric, Sucking My Love or Borrowed Time show how Brian Tatler is really influenced by Mr Page!! Brian Tatle is the only original member of Diamond Head today, but to us it doesn't matter,we wanted to hear these songs from them and the final Am I Evil was simply awesome!!!
What you say the word class, you say Girlschool!!! Four women that earn respect from many men in this business!!! And also in this night they made their good show, but with songs like C'mon Lets' Go, Hit And Run, Race With Devil it's impossible that Girlschool do a bad show!!!
Also this time Kim, Enid and their pals show to everybody that Girlschool are not a joke, but an important reality in Heavy Metal music!!
Now it's time for the first exhibition in Italy for Kevin Heybourne and his Angel Witch!!! They played the entire first album and some of their first singles like Loser. After 30 years finally also the Italian crowd know the power of Gorgon, Atlantis, Sweet Danger and it's cool!!! The dream end with the final couple songs Baphomet and, of course, Angel Witch that close the show and the entire festival!!!
This British Steel Fest was a huge festival, full of fun, good friends and excellent music..... Does anybody know, if next year someone will organize this one again???