HRH XIII - Thursday 7th November

Parkdean Resorts, Great Yarmouth

Review by; Myk

 

With Hard Rock Hell XIII now at a new venue in Great Yarmouth there was much anticipation as to how things would fare compared to the tried and tested location in North Wales.

 

On the Thursday first up were Liberty Lies with Adam and Miles giving a solid backdrop to Josh’s neat fret work allowing Shaun to showcase his superb voice on their hard rock tinged repertoire. They engaged well with the somewhat static audience. This was mainly due to the VIP seated area directly in front of the stage, who I heard one punter comically refer to as a geriatric mosh pit. Fortunately the HRH powers that be clearly recognised the issue and changed the setup a bit for the Friday and Saturday.   Back to Liberty Lies and this is definitely a band I’ll look out for in the future. 

 

Next up were Killcode with frontman Tom Morrissey strutting around the stage like he owned the place, and all the time they were playing he did with his powerful vocal delivery and American swagger. With Southern rock laced riffs reminding me of summer this was feel good music which the crowd clearly appreciated. It was also good to see Tom with his very distinct look hanging around for the rest of the weekend appreciating other bands performances. 

 

Cloven Hoof put out some solid classic heavy metal tunes as you would expect with their roots going back to the late seventies, early eighties. The vocals worked well on some tracks but sounded a bit strained and harsh on others, so watchable enough but not spectacular.

Onto Electric Mary with some beautiful blues infused rock, absolutely loved these guys with the laid-back vibe, gravelly vocals and kick ass tunes. Another definite band to add to my watch list. 

 

I then arrived half way through headliners Reef and was pleasantly surprised as they upped the tempo and threw in some entertaining covers (T Rex – Get It On, Robert Palmer – Addicted to Love & Rod Stewart – Stay With Me) amongst their own material including the stone cold classic Place Your Hands. The crowd was really into the performance expending loads of energy dancing and singing along. 

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Finally, the after-show party was packed when Tequila Mockingbird came on stage only to be hit with some technical difficulties resulting in a brief pause before starting again. They then launched into some high energy tunes with strong vocals and also included some Amorettes tunes, unsurprising as they are currently a hybrid of the 2 bands due to happenstance.  

All in all a very satisfying first day at HRH XIII.