AIRBOURNE, Orange Goblin, The Treatment @The Institute, Birmingham 9/12/13

As you get older time really does seem to fly. For example, can it really be close on three years since RTM first saw The Treatment?

Still impossibly young, that night in Nuneaton they were bottom of a bill to showcase the High Voltage record label, but even then they stood out.

Now they are readying album number two, "Running With The Dogs" and they seem to have the brightest of bright futures.

If years spent touring with everybody from Thin Lizzy and Status Quo to Black Stone Cherry (we think this is the fifth time we've seen them) make them polished. Their songs make them excellent. There is nothing subtle about them. This is straight up hard rock the way it used to sound. They sing a song called "I Bleed Rock And Roll" without any irony at all - and moreover you actually believe they do.

Finishing their set with old song "Shake The Mountain" The Treatment are as always, youthfully exuberant and thoroughly entertaining, and possibly set to leave the support circuit behind.

AC/DCs "Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock And Roll)" blasts out as Orange Goblin march out onto the stage. It is a prescient choice. For the 16 years since their début masterpiece "Frequencies From Planet Ten" came out - they play "Saruman's Wish" from it tonight - Goblin have been making stunning music, but only now are they finally getting the rewards.

Long one of RTMs favourite bands, OG have spent 2013 on the road, and it shows in a 40 minute set which is joyous, heavy and yet accessible all at once.

"Acid Trial" is monstrous, "Filthy And The Few" is one of the finest songs of this decade and "Some You Win, Some You Lose" welds into your brain and doesn't let go and that's just for starters.

Man mountain he may be, but clad in his Rainbow t shirt singer Ben Ward is no different from many of the crowd tonight and that is Goblin's key strength. Not Rock stars, just one of the best metal bands on the planet. Tonight is Orange Goblin's vindication for sticking at it.

Airbourne sound like AC/DC. Every article about the band has to say this it seems. This statement assumes that a) the band don't know and b) it's a bad thing.

Right from the moment RTM first went to watch the group, at the old Academy 3 back about seven years ago, to the twice a couple of years back they warmed up for Maiden and all the other times in between, one thing has set the Aussies apart and it is the sheer glee with which they perform. Oh and the volume. They are right up with Motörhead in ear ringing stakes.

And blimey, they can pull the punters in. Yes it's a great bill, but The Institute is heaving when the four piece arrive to the Terminator theme.

Right from the first bar of the rather appropriately named "Ready To Rock" this is a show of crazy proportions. The band are always bouncier than a Kangaroo with too much fizzy pop, but by third song in "Girls In Black" singer/guitarist Joel O'Keefe is on a roadies shoulders being carried around the crowd and it's clear they mean business here.

Then there's the songs. Riffs abound, and "Diamond In the Rough" is classic Acca Dacca Double entendre, the title track of recent record "Black Dog Barking" is a heavy hymn to the rock n roll of youth, while "Ain't No Way But The Hard Way" is full of cocksure stomp.

The encore sees "Raise The Flag" literally shake the room and then take it up a notch further as O'Keefe performs from the balcony, before an ebullient end of "Runnin' Wild" sees a snippet of "Paranoid" and the frontman smashing beer cans with his head. Don't tell us they are mere clones, Airbourne are simply too good live for that.

A special night. Three great bands, and headliners sound better than ever. In years to come reviews might even talk about a young band that sounds like Airbourne. We might almost forgive their gloating about the Ashes score. Almost.

ORANGE GOBLIN, Admiral Sir Coudsley Shovel, Earls Of Mars @Slade Rooms Wolverhampton 6/2/13

Blimey. Earls Of Mars, when you see them for the first time, will probably engender that sort of reaction (ok probably a lot stronger but we try and keep it clean at RTM). They are, we suspect, the type of band that will provoke a strong feeling one way or the other.

Frontman Harry Armstrong it transpires sang on tonights headliners “The Big Black” album – later joining them onstage – and is an old friend of the band. He stands stage front, bashing away on a keyboard, while someone else plays the double bass, while prog riffs wail over the top. RTM loves them and by the time they finish “The Mirrored Staircase” we are very much in the blimey-in-a-good-way camp.

Despite the name, Sir Admiral Cloudsley Shovel, are a more straightforward affair. Signed to the mark of stoner rock quality that is Rise Above, theirs is a twin guitar, galloping bass sound of proper classic 1970s heavy metal.

Frontman Johnny Gorilla deadpans to the crowd: “You might have heard of us, but you probably haven’t.” However, their astonishingly good “Don’t Hear It….Fear It” record should change that. “Red Admiral Black Sunrise” is multi-riffed freak out, while their cover of the Groundhogs “Bulletproof” showcases a blusier side. Goblin front man Ben Ward joins them for set closer “Thicker The Better. “ Daft name they might have, but these Admiral’s are set fair – and any band with a song called “Scratching And Sniffing” is ok with us.

Over the last few months Orange Goblin have thrust themselves into the limelight as one of the finest bands in Britain. No longer the cult preserve of a few beardy fellas who like massive riffs, they released the absolutely magnificent “A Eulogy For The Damned” album in 2012 (it won the RTM best album of the year poll) while their live shows just get better and better – as they showed when touring with down last Autumn. Happily the gig going public of Great Britain are catching on and despite this being in the middle of a mammoth UK tour, the Slade Rooms is approaching full.

Even better, the crowd is treated to a show that will surely rank as one of the best of the year. Beginning with “Scorpionica” and continuing with the “Filthy And The Few,” Goblin in those two songs showcase all that makes them quite so marvelous. The riffs are huge but catchy and man mountain singer Ward delivers the songs with such conviction that you cannot help but get carried along.

Whilst there are plenty of songs from “…Damned” the band uses the occasion to dust off some old stuff too. The pick of these, perhaps, is a trip back to the first album (16 years old, where does the time go!?)  for “Saruman’s Wish” which sounds re-invigorated tonight.

Guitarist Joe Hoare stands stage left casually and effortlessly knocking out the riffs, perhaps at his best during “Cosmo Bozo.” The main set ends with “Harvest Of Souls” and “Quincy The Pigboy” before “Blue Snow” and “Eulogy’s” glorious opener “Red Tide Rising” bids us farewell.

This winter tour apparently is not the last activity from Goblin in 2013 – and the band have already played with Clutch this year – with Ward promising to see us again the autumn. Whether that heralds new material too is unclear (there is a live album slated) but that matters little, because on this form Orange Goblin are simply unstoppable. 

DOWN, Orange Goblin, Warbeast @Institute, Birmingham 20/10/12

It is difficult to quantify the influence that Philip H Anselmo has managed to exert on modern metal music. In the late 80s he joined a struggling hard rock called Pantera as vocalist. In 1990 they band put out the seminal “Cowboys From Hell” and gave those of us that never really got grunge a band to like.

History has documented over the years just exactly what Pantera did before they imploded in acrimony, but Anselmo has always liked plenty of strings to his bow. Amongst many, many side projects, he formed Down in the early 90s with a bunch of New Orleans contemporaries. Guitarists Pepper Keenan, and Kirk Windstein from Corrosion of Conformity and Crowbar respectively and drummer Jimmy Bower of Eyehategod were amongst the ranks. In 1995 the “supergroup” (as we apparently have to call these things) released an album called “NOLA” that the teenage RTM played to death. The group has reconvened plenty of times over the years and have just released their new cd to the world, the rather marvelous, “Down IV – The Purple EP.”

Throughout his controversies and problems Anselmo has always remained metal to the core, you suspect, and so it is that he spends his time while Warbeast are onstage just drinking beer and watching the band from behind the drums as avidly as any fan would.

As well as having the most metal name in the history of the world, Warbeast are signed to Anselmo’s Housecore Records label. It is easy to see what got them that deal. A mix of twin guitar metal and thrash, they headbang their way through songs like ”Scorched Earth Policy,” “Trust The Enemy” and “It” with relish. Their sound is never going to change anyone’s life,  but they keep the crowd – which is large given the ridiculously early start time – enthralled.

Orange Goblin have morphed from being a cult stoner band from the South Coast into one of the finest heavy metal bands in Britain right now. Their “Eulogy For The Damned” album will be somewhere very high in the RTM end-of-year round up, and they have the confidence in their material to pull off a simply stunning 45 minutes tonight.

Beginning with “…Damned” opener “Red Tide Rising” and following it with perhaps it’s stand out moment in “The Filthy And The Few” their set is mostly culled from the newer end of their catalogue. Man mountain singer Ben Ward – clad in a Status Quo t-shirt – conducts things from the front, dedicating “Acid Trial” to the still watching Anselmo. By the time the mighty riffs of “Scorpionica” bring things to a close, you realise that you have just witnessed one of the greatest sets of 2012. After more than 15 years, the Goblin have arrived.

Half an hour after Ward’s men finish, the house lights go dark to usher on Down. Things might begin in rather sedate fashion, with Anselmo waving and chatting to the sold out crowd, but any notion that this will be a relaxed affair is eschewed the second the words “this one is called ‘Eyes of the South’” leaves his lips. There is – and it is no mere hyperbole to say this – absolute chaos from the first chord. If the vibe in the crowd and the quality of the bands on show, always gave rise to a suspicion that tonight could be very special indeed, the first five minutes confirm the thought.

A double whammy from the new EP follows in lead single “Witchtripper” and “Open Coffins” before “Lifer” is dedicated to Dimebag Darrell to rapturous cheers. An injury to a crowd surfer during “Ghosts of the Mississippi” brings a lull while fitness of said fan is ascertained, but it is only a brief one, as we are straight back in with “Temptation’s Wings.”

Incredibly the encore manages to up the intensity, after a crushing “Misfortune Teller” comes the anthemic “Stone The Crows,” during which Anselmo play the pantomime and refuse to play the song until the audience is on its feet.

“Hail The Leaf” follows before “Bury Me In Smoke” sees the support acts join the headliners for a jam session to being things to a close, but not before Windstein takes the mic, the effortlessly cool Keenan throws his plectrums into the gathered throng, and  Anselmo dances, grins from ear-to-ear and gives us the last line of “Stairway to Heaven.”

We file out of the venue reflecting on just how a side-project, and one that most probably formed after the members got drunk and started jamming nearly two decades ago, got be this good. But, as any music fan knows, sometimes things don’t need analysing, things just need to be enjoyed, and although it might only be October, what we saw here was most probably the gig of the year.

Tonight Down – and Orange Goblin too – were remarkable.