Live Reviews

Arctic Monkeys - Alexandra Palace 9/12/07

I was one of 8000 people lucky enough to get a ticket for the second show of Arctic Monkeys' two-night stint at Alexandra Palace on the Sunday night. Sunday night gigs are always slightly strange affairs, as there is that haze of imminent toil hovering above the heads of the punters.

Thin Lizzy Rock Cambridge!

Guest Contributor 'Fishboy' excites over Thin Lizzy at The Cambridge Corn Exchange, Nov 23rd 2007:

What a night – the sound techs usually get the sound so wrong here (e.g. Bullet For My Valentine and Def Leppard in recent years) – but when they get it right, like tonight, The Cambridge Corn Exchange Rocks!

Heaven and Hell - Live In Newcastle

Heaven and Hell - Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle:
There is a school of thought that suggests that the definitive Black Sabbath is not the one with the brummie singer but the one containing that other bloke, you know, the one who is obsessed by dragons and wizards. Leaving such debates aside let’s consider the facts:

Van Halen - Madison Square Gardens NYC

Andy's Review

Being able to write an unbiased review of this gig was always going to be difficult. Having waited the best part of 23 years to have the chance to see Eddie & Dave on the same stage brings a certain level of anticipation and potential blind adulation into the mix. I’d already pretty much decided the gig couldn’t get 5/5 due to a certain Mr Anthony missing. That aside, on Tuesday 13th November 2007, I, along with my All Out Guitar colleague, Rory Sullivan, got to witness 'roth and roll' history….

Rush Live - NEC 12th Oct 2007

The first time that I saw the legendary Rush was in 1983 at Wembley Arena, London. This was my first ever concert and it will remain with me for all my days as a truly seminal moment, well evening. The fourth time that I saw Rush was last week at the NEC in Birmingham UK and nothing has changed much – I even went with the same two friends from 1983.

Steve Vai - Tantric Widdle Master Class

The Saturday of the London Guitar show weekend saw Steve Vai perform twice in what was advertised as a master class, but was really an informal question and answer session with a wee bit of playing.

Mark Robinson and myself managed to sneak away from the (very busy) alloutguitar stand and escape to the 45 min Vaiquiz, which was opened unofficially with one of the guitar techs coming onstage and playing a chord

The Shins - The Forum 28/03/07

I’ve been waiting for the Shins to come and play in Europe since I first heard of them. I’m not trying to sound all inclusive and EU by saying that, I mean that I was prepared to visit whichever City they played in Europe if they chose to shun the UK. I was beginning to look forward to telling friends I was off to Paris to watch The Shins, or to Copenhagen to take in their gig…

My Chemical Romance play sold-out LA Forum

My Chemical Romance pulled out all the stops for their show at the Los Angeles Forum on Saturday night (March 10). Dressed in matching black-and-white Sgt Pepper’s jackets, the New Jersey quintet ran through 2006’s ‘The Black Parade’ in its entirety for a sold-out crowd of 18,000.

The evening began with frontman Gerard Way being wheeled out onto the stage lying on a hospital trolley…

Joe Satriani: Satriani Live!

This DVD was filmed on May 2, 2006 at the Grove in Anaheim California. I personally had the pleasure of witnessing a date earlier that same tour at a concert at the historic and vaunted Massey Hall in Toronto Canada on April 12, 2006. It was a night to remember!

As I mentioned in my review of that concert, never before had I personally seen a Joe so happy, confident and so much at ease and playful with his music….

John Mayall & The Blues Breakers

Picture a dark, raining, and cold November night and I am heading off to see John Mayall and the Blues Breakers (this time around with Buddy Wittington on Guitar) in Cambridge, UK. The Corn Exchange is the biggest venue in Cambridge, with a capacity of around 1500-2000, and is not the best for sound being a very tall wooden roofed building - which results often in a lot of muffled tone.

As I arrived John was arranging his latest display of cash bargains: DVD's, CD's, Bookmarks, and assorted paraphernalia. A chance to catch a word with the man himself I thought...