Merry go round
By the time Motorhead hit the stage it has been raining for some time and it’s not surprising that the crowd at the main stage, being the most exposed part of the site, has thinned out somewhat. There is still a healthy turnout though and as you’d expect infront of the stage is as packed as ever.
I always have slight reservations about seeing Motorhead at festivals, mainly due to the sound, if it’s bad then the whole thing can be become very messy very quickly! Today it’s not bad at all thankfully although Phil Campbell’s guitar is too quiet in the solo’s, which coupled with his usual wah drenched fretwork makes it pretty hard to pick them out. Apart from that it’s the usual solid showing, the same old set list (yet again) that anyone seeing them in the last 3 years will have seen and the same old stage banter (yet again). They get away with it here because this is a festival crowd and some of this crowd won’t have seen them before, so for those people no doubt Motorhead are one of the highlights of the main stage. For the die hards, well we still live in hope of a change! ‘Stay Clean’ follows ‘Iron Fist’, ‘Be My Baby’, ‘Rock Out’ and ‘Metropolis’ all keep to familiar pattern as does the rest of the set.
Of most interest today was the announcement from Lemmy that they have just finished a new album (as yet untitled) and the fact that Slash joined them on guitar for ‘Just Cos You Got the Power’, returning the favour after Lemmy had sung ‘Dr Alibi’ with Slash earlier on in the day. Predictably ‘Ace of Spades’ gets the loudest cheer but it’s a toss up today between ‘In the Name of Tragedy’ and ‘Overkill’ for set stealing status.
For all we moan about the set list they are Motorhead and they play rock and roll… and the world would be a duller place without them.