Review & Photography by Manny Manson for MPM
The Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham always seems to hum with a grit that suits heavy music, and on the 5th of November 2025 it felt like its foundations had been deliberately loosened to make way for a night of catharsis and combustion. A three-band bill that could have only come from a mind that understands both fury and hooks, erupting with the raw and esoteric force of Witch Fever, smouldered in the post-grunge incense of BUSH, and finished in the swaggering, stadium-shaking swagger of VOLBEAT. The autumn air outside still carried the faint smell of fireworks from Bonfire Night, but inside the arena the explosions were human, visceral, and immediate.
Witch Fever came first, but they didn’t feel like an opener, they felt like a warning siren. A Manchester band born of rage, fury and liberation, raised underground and clawing upwards with each release, rising fast since their earliest singles and exploding with that first EP Reincarnate in 2021, then detonating further when they unleashed Congregation in 2022, a record that snarled and shook with a fearless deconstruction of identity, control and religious trauma. But tonight felt like a coronation of the next evolution, because this was the eve of their new era. A new album, FEVEREATEN, dropped October 31st, 2025, and here they were, standing tall and unapologetic, ready to feed the place their new skin, new teeth, new truth.
Witch Fever walked into the darkness first, the Manchester quartet silhouetted against an unsettling glow like spectres rising from a smouldering cathedral floor. When Amy Walpole’s haunting vocal opened Drank the Sap, it felt less like the beginning of a set and more like the start of a seance. Driven by the creeping menace that has defined so much of their sonic identity and sharpened by the prismatic shift into the new record FEVEREATEN, the band carved the arena into a sanctuary for the damned, those seeking comfort in noise and truth. Alisha Yarwood’s guitar tone was jagged yet ritualistic, almost sacred in its dissonance, the stabs of distortion slicing through Alex Thompson’s bass presence, deep, glowering, endlessly anchored to Annabelle Joyce’s primal drums.
The crowd, many still filing in, found themselves caught in a spell by the time The Garden unfurled its brooding dirge. The arena lights stayed stark and unkind, the band trusting the music to do the talking and trusting the audience to listen. Walpole stalked the stage with an almost preacher-like cadence, not offering comfort but demanding confrontation. Burnt to Hit brought a jagged escalation, that serrated vocal grit climbing walls only to jump back down them again, feral and fearless. It was in Dead to Me where Witch Fever’s new material truly bared its teeth, the band sounding both huge and claustrophobic at once, that signature doom-punk snarl flickering between ritual chant and total meltdown. The energy spiked again with Blessed Be Thy, their lone dive into Congregation territory tonight, a reminder that their past work had already set fires, they’ve simply learned how to control the blaze now.
As the title track FEVEREATEN rolled out like a serpentine sermon, droning, seething, reborn, the anticipation for the album’s release this Friday pulsed in the room. They ended with I See It, a cathartic exorcism that snapped the crowd fully into their world. Walpole’s voice glowed like an ember refusing to die, declaiming rather than pleading. It wasn’t a set meant to please; it was one meant to hold and haunt. A band evolving, sharpening, daring, Witch Fever didn’t warm the room. They hexed it. And judging by the murmurs rippling through the audience as they disappeared into smoke and strobe, the spell worked.
And then came BUSH, a band who know exactly what it means to ride fire and rise from ash, who carried the weight of the 90s alt-rock crown and refused to crumble under it. Born in London in 1992, detonating into the global bloodstream in 1994 with Sixteen Stone, an album that didn’t so much arrive as explode, selling millions, riding songs like Glycerine and Comedown and Everything Zen into alt-rock immortality. A band who survived the backlash era, the “too big, too fast” noise, the dissolution at the end of the 2000s, the rebirth in 2010 with The Sea of Memories, and the relentless modern resurgence that followed: Man on the Run (2014), Black and White Rainbows (2017), The Kingdom (2020), The Art of Survival (2022), and their 2025 offering I Beat Loneliness, which landed like a statement of resilience carved in storm steel. BUSH tonight weren’t nostalgia; they were proof of endurance.
BUSH hit the Motorpoint stage like a band that has learned to live in every era they’ve survived, from the grit-slung alleyways of 90s post-grunge London to their muscular, sharpened present, and tonight they played as if every chapter of their evolution was tattooed across the arena walls. Gavin Rossdale erupted into motion the moment the lights bled white, his silhouette instantly recognisable, all coiled energy and brittle elegance, prowling like he owned not just the stage but the decade it was born from. And when those first jagged chords of Everything Zen hit, the opener from Sixteen Stone, the record that pulled British rock unexpectedly into the heart of America’s alt-rock boom in 1994, the arena reacted like Nottingham had inhaled and exhaled its youth in one breath. That riff still bites, that lyric still burns, and Rossdale’s voice, throaty, wounded, defiant, rolled like it had never once wilted under mainstream expectation or time’s abrasive touch. It wasn’t nostalgia. It was resurrection.
They plunged next into Bullet Holes, that cinematic pulse from The Kingdom era, its swagger sharpened by the band’s modern industrial-leaning approach. Chris Traynor’s guitar sliced clean and lean, more carbine than chorus pedal, while Corey Britz’s bass shook the floor, a reminder that BUSH have long left the fuzzy haze of the 90s behind for steel-edged clarity. Rossdale paced like a wolf locked in thought, snarling through the microphone with that rhythmic, poetic snare he’s always had, a romantic with a switchblade tongue.
Then came The Land of Milk and Honey, a standout from I Beat Loneliness that already feels like a new pillar in their canon. This album marks Rossdale’s refusal to let comfort dull impact; instead, he digs deeper into themes of isolation, clawing toward connection with knuckles bloodied but faith intact. The crowd swayed in unison, drawn into the poetry and pulse, and by the time More Than Machines hit, the electrified, stomping anti-apathy anthem from The Art of Survival, fists lifted and voices rose. Rossdale snarled each line like a man who still believes in shaking the world awake.
There was a narrative arc unfolding, the band charting their journey not chronologically but emotionally. The Art of Loneliness and Identity hit like confession and confrontation, the new-era BUSH with teeth bared. This is the period where BUSH have nothing left to prove to trends, only to themselves, razor riffs, grinding electronics, and Rossdale’s voice turning from silken ache to volcanic grit on command. You could hear the ghosts of Razorblade Suitcase’s unease, the ambition of Golden State, the bruised modern weight of Black and White Rainbows, all funnelled into these new missions.
When The Art of Survival crashed through the speakers, the arena moved like one beating heart, and then I’m Here to Save Your Life, one of those Rossdale declarations that could be whispered in a diary or carved into concrete, poured from him with a conviction that borders on spiritual. And as I Beat Loneliness arrived, again anchoring the set with that album’s title track, there was something heroic in the repetition; this was not redundancy but mantra, a reminder that survival often requires constant self-reassurance.
Then Rossdale pulled a curveball, a prowling, gritty cover of Come Together by The Beatles, delivered with teeth bared, a sleazier, darker strut than the original, and the crowd devoured it. It felt like a bridge between eras of British rock, a passing torch from Merseybeat to post-grunge resilience, and Rossdale wielded it without imitation, only interpretation and authority.
The return to Swallowed lit the arena like a flare. That Razorblade Suitcase melancholy, jagged and vulnerable, raw as a diary page torn mid-sentence, still lands like an emotional amBUSH. Rossdale didn’t just sing it; he dissolved inside it, eyes closed, voice cracking in familiar places, a man revisiting wounds he long learned to live beside rather than bury. Traynor made the guitar lines moan like they’d been waiting years to scream again. Another sweep through I Beat Loneliness cemented the present BUSH as not a legacy act but a band still defining themselves, repetition here became insistence: we survive, we endure, we move.
And then they closed with Flowers on a Grave from The Kingdom, a modern anthem of rebirth, its chorus rising like smoke from the ruins of everything BUSH have endured, fame, backlash, reinvention, fatherhood, heartbreak, rebirth. Rossdale held the final notes with the quiet intensity of someone who understands that pain isn’t an obstacle to making art, it’s the engine.
When the last chord rang, Nottingham didn’t clap, it roared, hesitant to let the spell break. BUSH didn’t feel like a band revisiting glory. They felt like a band still climbing, still hungry, still burning. They stitched 90s ache to 2020s grit, and in doing so proved something few rock acts from their generation ever could: they are not surviving the present. They are defining it.
And as Rossdale walked off, sweat on his brow, head slightly bowed, guitar hanging low, it felt less like a goodbye and more like a promise, this chapter is only just beginning.
VOLBEAT, a band born in Copenhagen in 2001, forged from Metallica-schooled thrash grit, rockabilly swagger, punk tooth, Elvis’s ghost-croon and the spirit of Johnny Cash punching through amplifier grills. Their rise was a thing of force and timing; The Strength / The Sound / The Songs (2005) put them on the radar, Rock the Rebel / Metal the Devil (2007) launched them into Denmark’s stratosphere, Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood (2008) solidified their identity, but it was Beyond Hell / Above Heaven in 2010 that changed everything, global breakthrough, stadium anthems, a new shape to European heavy music. Then Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies (2013), Seal the Deal & Let’s Boogie (2016), Rewind, Replay, Rebound (2019), Servant of the Mind (2021), and the seismic 2023 turning point when Rob Caggiano, founding brother of the VOLBEAT era fans had grown up with, departed. The faithful held breath as the chapter turned. And then came 2025 with Gods of Angels Trust, proving evolution doesn’t have to mean compromise, it can mean sharpening the blade.
The stage lights plunged into darkness and reverberation drummed through the heavy air of the Motorpoint Arena, an almost physical weight that had spent the night gathering in the wings. The stage was sealed off by a mighty curtain, the shadowy silhouettes of the four band members, Poulson, Larsen, C. Lund and Larsen the bass player, stared out menacingly at the fans. Then, like thunder cracking open a prairie sky, VOLBEAT erupted into life. The curtain dropped, the arena was swamped with a blitz like myriads of spot lights. Michael Poulsen stepped forward front-and-centre, guitar slung low, his figure half-in shadow, half-lit by rebellion. Behind him Jon Larsen sat poised, drumsticks taped and ready like twin batons of war, while bucket hat wearing, Kaspar Boye Larsen’s bass lurked at stage‐right, silent until the explosion. New lead guitarist at the left, filling the void left when Rob Caggiano departed in June 2023, an era closed, a new chapter opened; it was December 2022 that VOLBEAT were last in Nottingham
They tore open the night with “The Devil’s Bleeding Crown” from their sixth studio album Seal the Deal & Let’s Boogie (released 3 June 2016). The riff hit with the precision of a Liberty-bell smash; big, brash, polished in the way only a band grown from club fights to stadium roar can do. Poulsen’s voice thundered: part rockabilly, part heavy metal preacher, part outlaw whisper, his voice carried that signature blend of Elvis warmth and thrash grit, those rolled r’s and golden croons cutting through the heaviness like spotlight through smoke. The chorus cracked the arena open, thousands of voices joining him in full surrender. The guitars shone with swagger, the bass thudded like heartbeats, the drums thundered like hooves on concrete. It was a statement: this band has found their anthem-stride, they’ve locked in, and Nottingham felt it in their boots.
Without a pause, they launched into “Lola Montez” from Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies (released 5 April 2013). still one of the great VOLBEAT rallying choruses, a galloping swing that turns arenas into horse-stampede rhythm pits. The room shifted, curdled into the slow gallop of a western tale, gunslinger rhythm, dusty harmonica memories, Poulsen narrating with the sly grin of someone who knows the world’s full of wild women and gun-smoke mornings. The crowd dissolved into movement: fists pumping, heads thrown back, the lights flicking like saloon doors. The lead guitar spun with flare; rhythm section grounded it in sheer momentum. It felt cinematic, like watching a bar-fight in Technicolor while drinking whiskey that tastes like regret and freedom. And whilst the melody soared, the crowd roared the “dance, Lola, dance!” refrain like a hymn of rebellion, bodies bouncing, arms thrown up like praise.
Then came the hush, a lone acoustic strum, and Poulson took time to chat to the fans, we all knew what was coming as he teased us with the familiar melody of “Ring of Fire” It was the ghost of Johnny Cash standing just behind Poulsen, then the band slammed full-force into “Sad Man’s Tongue” from Rock the Rebel/Metal the Devil (released 23 February 2007). The crowd knew immediately: this is not just a gig, it’s a root-ritual. The rhythm jumped like boots on whiskey-slicked floors, the guitar leapt like a pistol shot, Poulsen snarled: lost, found, cursed, redeemed. The crowd roared, body and soul entwined in the groove. The marriage of country-blues and heavy metal that VOLBEAT built their foundation on was alive in every note, their earliest statement of identity, unpolished but already gleaming.
They shifted into “Demonic Depression”, pulled from their ninth studio album God of Angels Trust (released 6 June 2025). This track pulled the room into dusk. Heavy. Brooding. Thick like storm clouds snarling above a condemned church. The lighting dipped violet and black, Larsen’s bass grew low and rumbling, drums slammed slow and deliberate. Poulsen lowered his voice, crooning through shadow and grit. The guitars didn’t just shred, they scorched. This is VOLBEAT grown up, they told us: years of touring, blood spilled, guitars changed, legacy built, now refined into something sharper, leaner, dangerous in new ways. The audience leaned in. Everyone felt the firmness of the moment, as Michael’s vocal switched from crooning lament to vicious bite. It felt ritualistic, almost spiritual, a baptism by distortion. And the crowd, a little slow to warm up where now consuming it with vigour.
“Fallen” from Beyond Hell / Above Heaven (released 10 September 2010) landed like a memory breaking open. A track drenched in heart, dedicated to Poulsen’s father, poured out in an arena-size wave of emotion. The acoustic intro hovered like mist, then the band soared. The crowd swayed. Some eyes glinted with tears. The guitars wept then roared, the drums marched with subtle force, bass whispered into the back rows. The moment wasn’t about speed or mosh, it was about connection, thousands breathing as one, a track written from parental grief and love, and it still hits like a fist made of memory and fire. That’s the magic of VOLBEAT, heavy enough for pits, emotional enough to make grown men stare into the lights like they’re praying.
Then jerked back into life came “Shotgun Blues” from Servant of the Mind (released 3 December 2021), (the final album with Caggiano on lead guitar). The riff shot off like gunpowder, the drums stomped like boot-heels, the guitar barked with menace, it tore the place open. Chugging low-end filth, black-metal ghost hints in the tremolo flickers, drums like artillery. The crowd surged like they were glad to be alive, glad to be here, glad to have their hearts pumped full of VOLBEAT energy. The stage lights were red, white, green—colours of whiskey and danger. Poulsen grinned like he remembered the club days and now he’s in front of 10,000.
Into the barn-fire hell they marched: “In the Barn of the Goat Giving Birth to Satan’s Spawn in a Dying World of Doom” from God of Angels Trust. The title alone makes you grin. One so absurd and audacious only VOLBEAT could pull it off, and live, it turned into a chaotic, swaggering, evil-grinning stomp through hell’s barn doors the live experience makes you growl. The guitars dragged like beasts from the abyss, bass roared, drums paced like an execution march. The arena became a pit of molten groove, and the crowd embraced the absurd and the intense alike. VOLBEAT have always flirted with tongue-in-cheek horror, but tonight it felt serious: myth, metal, madness, all stitched together. The arena roared its approval; heavy metal can be emotional and poetic and dead serious… but it can also be fun as hell.
Followed by “By Monster’s Hand” (also from God of Angels Trust), the rhythm ratcheted up another notch. Guitars chugged with tightened aggression, drums slammed full-tilt, Poulsen’s voice barked the chorus and the crowd answered like arm-in-arm warriors. This is the present VOLBEAT: they’ve shed no past, but they’ve learned to sharpen it with a muscular groove, macabre storytelling, and riffs, thick like diesel fumes.
Then the arm-raising, heart-lifting gospel-meets-rock bounce of the anthemic “Heaven nor Hell” from Beyond Hell / Above Heaven returned us to a wild-joyous place, raised harmonica, glossy guitars, big public-singalong chorus. The crowd raised every fist, every head leaned back, every voice joined the call: “HEAVEN NOR HELL!” It’s VOLBEAT’s party anthem, their gospel of leather jackets and black ties, of rhythm swinging like a whiskey-drenched revival tent, crowd singing every word like freedom was on the line. Feathers and flames all at once.
The dark swagger, blues-stained menace that is “The Devil Rages On” from Servant of the Mind slithered in next. Guitar squall, bass hammer, drums like anvils falling in a foundry. Poulsen snarled about rage and redemption, the crowd surged like a live organism. It felt primal: metal, outlaw rock, defiant thrash, all in one hard-fought package.
Then the lights burst white and the brass-meets-rock’n’roll thrill of “Die to Live” from Rewind, Replay, Rebound (released 2 August 2019) erupted, the riff at the start hooked you like a classic rock single from the 70s, then it blasted into arena-size urgency. The crowd danced and punched the air, voices rising in that glittering chorus: “Die to live, what a way to live!” They paused mid-song, ears pressed at the stage, soaking in every note of triumph. This album marked the arrival of Kaspar Boye Larsen on bass and a fresh thrust into the future. It had the crowd dancing and hollering like it was 1956 and 2025 all at once.
“Time Will Heal” from God of Angels Trust followed, a soaring track that shifted gears, still trailed by grit, but drenched in reflection and melody. The crowd settled into a wave, the lights glowed soft gold, guitars shimmered, drums carried weight and hope. This is VOLBEAT after the storms, still fighting, still singing: scars turned into songs, a gut-punch of hope wrapped in thunder, that VOLBEAT specialty, heavy but human, crushing but warm. Then “Black Rose” Rumbled in from Seal the Deal & Let’s Boogie its roaring riffs crisp, melody wide-open, crowd cheering like it’s a hometown anthem no matter where the arena sits. That album came out on 3 June 2016, a high-water mark for the band’s global ascent. The guitars sang, bass pulsed, drums locked like hands in a handshake, all outlaw romance and rebel swagger, everyone in the room felt part of the VOLBEAT machine.
“Seal the Deal”, the title track from the same album, followed. Attack and elegance, leathery swagger with class. The crowd knew every line. Poulsen delivered each word like a promise, each riff like a handshake between band and audience: we’re in this together, loud and proud, fists up, crowd screaming, that charging heartbeat drum, the arena shaking like the world’s biggest pub chorus. When “For Evigt” arrived, like a hymn carved in bone, that soaring Danish-touched anthem that feels eternal. the room turned into a choir. The Danish lyrics rose around the world, proving language and geography don’t matter, sound does. The track leapt like homecoming, riffs open like a banner in the wind, drums marching, bass roaring. That album mark, 2016, was when VOLBEAT claimed arenas across continents, and tonight we felt that lineage.
Then came something raw, the inevitable riot: “Still Counting” from Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood (released 29 August 2008). Poulson invited all the kids in the arena to join him on stage. “These are the VOLBEAT and Metal fans of the future” he told us. At least 50 kids made their way to the stage, some awkward some living their best lives as the band rocked, this was special, The riff kicked like a car crash in a midnight street. The crowd surged, the kids threw fists, and shouted the chorus like a pact. That album was where VOLBEAT shifted from cult favourite to international contender, and the song lived in the veins of every fan, the song that turned VOLBEAT from “your mate’s recommendation” into “holy hell, who ARE these guys.” That “counting all the assholes in the room” line hit like a cultural landmark. Tonight, the roar was primal: this band still remembers their clubs, their scrapes, their fights, and they make you feel them. When the song died Poulson took time to acknowledge each and every kid on stage, holding his guitar to them so they could each strum the last lick of the song, phones where out and Poulsen posed for pictures, handing out pics to the lucky ones as they were chaperoned off the stage.
And then the double-hammer finale “A Warrior’s Call” from Beyond Hell / Above Heaven, and finally “Pool of Booze, Booze, Booza” from their debut The Strength/The Sound/The Songs (released 26 September 2005). That debut was raw, hungry, metal-rock-abilly underdog fire, and in that closing song you felt every inch of the journey. The crowd screamed, jumped, laughed, roared, it was an all-out celebration of survival. VOLBEAT didn’t fade out. They blared out. They left the place shaking.
When the final note finally rang, the lights blew in full gold, the crowd stood in electricity, in sweat, in memory. Poulsen raised his fist? No, he opened his arms, like he offered the whole night to the audience and took it back, sealed the deal, let’s boogie, forever. The arena didn’t explode. It erupted. And we all got to be the witness.
Three bands. Three eras. Three worlds colliding.
Witch Fever — the future, raw and rising, ripping down the old walls.
BUSH — the survivor kings, wounded and wise and roaring louder than ever.
VOLBEAT — the sovereigns of heavy-hearted swagger, metal cowboys with lightning in their veins.
This was their story written in fire, guitars, drums, hearts and voices, the sovereigns of heavy-hearted swagger, metal cowboys with lightning in their veins. And Nottingham didn’t just watch a gig. It lived one. It burned in one. It walked out baptised in distortion and sweat and something holy-heavy and unforgettable.
And if anyone ever doubts the power of loud guitars, human ache, and the communion of live music under arena lights, they should have been there tonight.
Because god help anyone who tries to tell the souls in that room that rock ‘n’ roll isn’t alive and screaming. Tonight, it bloody well ROARED!!
