It is amazing how quick this year has flown by. This feeling is enhanced when I attend my favourite event of the year. Yes, it is time for the ninth Metal Hammer Golden Gods Award. The ceremony is enhanced by the performance of some of the genre's heavy weights, sexy zombie models, crazy hardcore metalheads and none the other than Alice Cooper handing out the awards. The event was being held at the O2 Indigo on Monday 13 June 2011.
The day kicks off with the traditional cruise on the HMS Hammer filled to the rafters with 400 crazy metalheads and zombies. This year, however, there were two stages on board. Not only did we have the Main Stage with The Dead Lie Waiting, TesseracT, The Black Spiders and Biohazard headlining; we also had an outdoor Red Bull Bedroom Jam stage with some lucky bands playing on-board. The weather is good(a lot better than it was at Download this weekend) and the beer is cold. The cruise downriver to the O2 Arena required the Tower Bridge to be lifted giving the tourists quite a shock with almost a thousand devilhorns being waved at them as we cruise under the bridge.
Swindon based The Dead Lie Waiting opened the show with some solid death metal and the groove is on! They are followed by Century Media's progressive metallers, TesseracT, providing an extremely tight performance with very complicated time signatures and changes. TesseracT was definitely my personal discovery of the day and worth further looking into. Black Spiders followed with straightforward filthy hard rock. Wrapping the boat trip up was Brooklyn's heavies, Biohazard providing the wildest show I've seen on the HMS Hammer with stage dives, crowd surfing, circle pits; the whole lot on a little boat calmly cruising down the Thames.
The time has come for the award ceremony, but the event is kicked off by an absolutely awesome performance from Buckcherry followed by Reading based metallers, Sylosis. The highlight performace of the evening can only be The Devin Townsend Project, blasting straight into Ziltoid. Skindred provided a solid performance after Hevy Devy, but didn't quite have the same impact. The evening is neatly wrapped up by eighties rockers, Twisted Sister.
Again Metal Hammer provided a solid day of music, awards, sexy girls, even sexier bike (one lucky winner's prize) and rabid zombie metalheads. This is why the Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards is my favourite event of the year! Till next year fuckers...
Results of the awards
Best New Band: The Damned Things
Metal As Fuck: Nergal (Behemoth)
Best Underground Act (sponsored by Rising Records): Primordial
Dimebag Darrell Shredder(s) (sponsored by Blackstar): Gus G (Firewind, Ozzy Osbourne)
Breakthrough Artist (sponsored by Hobgoblin): Sabaton
Best UK Band (sponsored by Roadrunner): Iron Maiden
Best Live Band: Skindred
Inspiration Award (sponsored by Marshall): Twisted Sister
Best International Band: Avenged Sevenfold
Best Album: "Absolute Dissent" Killing Joke
Event of the Year (sponsored by Alchemy): The Big 4 coming together for the first time ever in the UK
Riff Lord(s): Pepper Keenan and Kirk Windstein (Down)
Spirit of Hammer: Diamond Head
Icons: Judas Priest
Golden God: Rob Zombie
More information on www.metalhammer.co.uk