Stonedead Festival 2022 review with Michael Schenker, Those Damn Crows, Stone Broken & more
Planet Rock visits 'a monster rock show' that echoes the spirit of festivals past
Planet Rock heads to Nottinghamshire for the fourth annual Stonedead festival on Saturday 27th August – a celebration of both the new and the classic in rock.
Many of the best rock festivals in the UK are dreamed up and breathed into reality by people not very different to you and me – people who simply loved seeing such events in their younger days and want to keep those flames burning. Steelhouse is one of those – and Stonedead is undoubtedly another.
Setting out with their oft-repeated mantra ‘one stage, one day, one monster rock show’, Stonedead is clearly inspired by Castle Donington’s old Monsters Of Rock events, which were exactly that. To ram the point home, you even pass beneath a miniature version of the famous Donington circuit bridge as you enter the arena here at Newark Showground in Nottinghamshire.
It might also be noted that Stonedead has already exceeded its original remit. The night before this year’s ‘one day’ event, the gates open to early comers for a three-band ‘party’ featuring well received sets from Revival Black, Australia’s Massive and revived UK rockers Black Spiders. Expansion – except where waistlines are concerned – is always a sign of health, as is the fact that this entire shebang is long since sold out.
The first to benefit from this, and the mercifully fine weather, is These Wicked Rivers, a near hallucinogenic aural and visual feast that appear to have time-travelled in from a mythical, head-trippin’ deep south (as opposed to Derby, which is where they’re actually from). The band won a poll to land this slot, and you don’t need a degree in psychology to work out why. They’re exorbitantly brilliant, gifted, colourful, deeply emotive, the works. There’s no better anthem than ‘Shine On’ to kick off a festival like this, new song ‘Black Gold’ rocks, and their 40-minute set allows time for the deep dig of ‘When The War Is Won’ – built around an exquisite Arran Day guitar motif, it is jaw-dropping, burly-blokes-in-tears level voodoo.
Atlanta’s Kickin Valentina aren’t built to follow this. They say nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, and while some still pine for the Jack Daniels-powered days of sleaze rock, that movement’s undercard hasn’t aged well. Here, the sandpaper-rough vocals so common to that genre make otherwise promising songs like ‘Somebody New’ seem like relics exhumed rather than renewed. They do bring a young fan on stage at the end, so kudos to them for that.
Your take on nostalgia might also determine your view of Tygers of Pan Tang. Part of the celebrated NWOBHM movement, the Tygers would probably not claim to have played a significant role, and with just one member remaining from that era – guitarist Robb Weir – they seem more of a contemporary classic metal act these days. They retain one, slightly arthritic foot in the past, but newer songs ‘Only The Brave’ and ‘Damn You’ easily trump the old.
After pulling out of last year’s event due to the dreaded virus, The Treatment are fired up and more than capable of making up for lost time. Once mentioned in the same breath as Rival Sons, and having played some pretty heavyweight tours, it’s remarkable – and disappointing – that this fiercely joyful, and joyfully fierce band haven’t scaled the heights. Perhaps they still will – new songs ‘Wrong Way’ and ‘Eyes On You’ are addictive, and they’ll always have AC/DC-hued rockers like ‘The Doctor’ and ‘Shake The Mountain’ to fall back on. Their set at Stonedead is perfectly judged and rocks like the proverbial hurricane.
The same can be said for Swedish hard rock stalwarts H.E.A.T, a band that remarkably reunited with original singer Kenny Leckremo in time for this year’s ‘Force Majeure’ album – and without losing their stride. Most of the set is culled from that release and its predecessor, the superb ‘H.E.A.T II’. This afternoon, baking in the sun, anthems like ‘Rock Your Body’, ‘Dangerous Ground’ and ‘Come Clean’ are as welcome as cold beer. It’s easily consumed, quenching melodic rock, and Leckremo – exuberant, grinning and bouncing as if spring-loaded – is an irresistible ringleader.
Amid all the pomp at Stonedead, there’s also time for reflection. The Royal British Legion is among the charities present, and there’s a noticeboard on which attendees can post messages about friends and family they have lost. There’s even a flypast – three times, in fact – by the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Avro Lancaster. The World War Two bomber is the only airworthy example of its type in Europe, and is maintained as a flying memorial to those who served.
Reflection of a different kind occurs on stage too, when festival host Krusher presents a ‘Golden Horns’ award to Jon Hendley’s wife and daughter. Jon, one of so many to have been robbed of life by cancer, was a staunch member of the Stonedead team – the bar is now named in his honour. Much to his surprise, Krusher is then himself given an award, recognising his perennial patronage of the event, now in its fourth year. The famously irreverent presenter then speaks with great candour about his own battle with prostate cancer, one from which he has thankfully made a full recovery.
Midlands rockers Stone Broken have also had to show more than a little grit in recent years. Today they’re clad all in black, perhaps signalling their intent to get straight down to business. Having seen so many plans curtailed by the pandemic and other issues, we’re now witnessing a new Stone Broken – heavy as before, but slicker in execution – each song played with renewed determination, a kind of hard-won unity. They include the aptly named ‘Stronger’, a hit single in waiting that they’ve apparently rarely played. Even more surprising is when frontman Rich Moss invites two fans on stage – a marriage proposal quickly ensues!
Where Stone Broken gathered the clans, Vandenberg seems to disperse them – initially at least. There’s no doubting Adrian Vandenberg’s rock star status, mostly due to his longer-than-average tenure in Whitesnake, remaining throughout the band’s most commercially successful era. However, songs from the suave guitarist’s own band are known to but a few. ‘Light Up The Sky’ is one of several perfectly capable hard rockers, all well sung by seasoned Swedish frontman Mats Levén, but they’re like strangers at a party; greeted with curiosity but not embraced. They do play an acoustic version of ‘Sailing Ships’ (in which Levén appears to forget the words), plus a full band take on ‘Judgement Day’, both from Whitesnake’s ‘Slip Of The Tongue’ album. A version of ‘Here I Go Again’ – the one most of us refer to as the 1987 US radio mix – also gets an airing. Vandenberg played the solo on this re-recorded version, probably leading him to be offered the job full-time. The band leaves the stage to fulsome applause, albeit largely fuelled by their choice of covers.
It says much for British hard rock’s ongoing revival that Those Damn Crows, a relatively young outfit, are today’s justified occupants of Stonedead’s Special Guest slot. Frontman Shane Greenhall, always a companiable presence, takes every opportunity to remind us how special this is for them – but the chit-chat does not come at the expense of the set, the band rapidly flexing their ever-enlarging musical muscles via such choice cuts as ‘Don’t Give A Damn’ and ‘Who Did It’. The latter is probably the evening’s first true singalong, while the former sees the exuberant Greenhall down in the photo pit, clambering up on to the barrier.
“The sun’s going down,” he later observes. “There’s an inflatable sheep and an inflatable penis. It looks a little bit like Tinder. Swipe!” Joking aside, the piano-led ‘Blink Of An Eye’ is one of those universal songs that transcends genre – or at least it does when the smoke clears sufficiently for Shane to see the keys. “Smoke – this must be what happens when you’re Special Guest,” he marvels. Later Shane will jump into the crowd and make his way out as far as the accessibility stand, where his microphone ceases to function, but perhaps most memorable for the Crows is new song ‘Wake Up’ – it’s got tribal rhythms, stabs of six-string and a post-grungey chorus. It proves the Welshmen are thinking ahead, not content to take the easy path of retreading old ground in slightly newer shoes.
It's fair to say that Michael Schenker has probably worn down a fair number of shoes – and guitar strings – in his extraordinary, helter skelter career. His current tour is not only promoting new album ‘Universal’ but it’s also saluting the guitarist’s truly remarkable 50 years in the business. Think about that number for a moment – when Schenker made his recorded debut 50 years ago, World War Two (which might feel like ancient history to some) had only been over for 27 years.
Tonight, rather than performing with singer Robin McAuley as he did at Steelhouse last month, Schenker brings out his regular frontman, Chilean-born Ronnie Romero – a talent that also won the approval of another iconic guitarist in 2015 when selected to sing for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. There’s another contrast with the Steelhouse performance in Schenker’s overall demeanour. Rather than constantly grinning and yelling his songs’ words into the ether as he did at the Welsh event, he’s a study in concentration – fixed facial expressions, focused aggression and clarity. He does voice concern about a lack of lighting on stage, fearing that he might perhaps plummet into the darkness of the photo pit. Although such an accident would actually be one of the lesser things to dog the guitarist’s tumultuous career, the situation is soon remedied, and by the time we get to third song ‘Doctor Doctor’, from his celebrated UFO days, all three guitar players and Romero line up on the lip of the stage for some Scorpions-style synchro rocking.
‘Armed And Ready’, a benchmark from Schenker’s extensive MSG back catalogue, is stellar, those clean riffs rippling through the calm night air like aural fireworks. It’s not just the accuracy of it all; it’s the crafted tone – the calculated combination of gut-level power and surprising feel. Many in the crowd peer up at the big screens on each side of the stage, respectfully watching the veteran musos’ fingers as they work their spidery magic.
Planet Rock favourite ‘A King Has Gone’ from the new album is a welcome if rather belated tribute to the late Ronnie James Dio, and it leads into a magnificent ‘Rock Bottom’, the weighty punch of that hook belted out by Romero as Schenker hunches over his iconic Dean Flying V. It’s also this track that gets broken down into an extended Schenk-a-thon as the guitarist ably demonstrates his multi-faceted virtuosity. From there, the likes of ‘Shoot Shoot’ and ‘Too Hot To Handle’, both UFO classics, propel this loyal crowd – nearly all of whom have stayed to the end – toward an appropriately rousing climax.
Given his long career (we’ll say it again – 50 years) you never know how many more times you might see a guy like Schenker, and if this does happen to be his UK farewell, he could have asked for no better send off than that afforded by Stonedead tonight. A superbly run festival – literally by the fans for the fans – and populated by helpful, enthusiastic staff, it’s another event for this country’s rock community to take to its very large collective heart.