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.
It's a typical damp November in Belfast as the hoards of black shirts make their way towards the beautiful Ulster Hall for a night of legends, the mighty Saxon supported by Udo Dirckschneider, original frontman of German rockers Accept.
It begins long before the house lights dim and the crowd files into The Halls in Wolverhampton, before the sweat and stomp and roar, before the guitars snarl and the mic cable whips like a lasso caught in a desert wind.
After thirty years in the trenches of rock and metal, photographing (just recently!), reviewing, and living this scene, I finally ticked off a long-overdue box: my first ever Disturbed show.
With the switchover to GMT any final forlorn and ultimately vain vestiges of seasons prior are well and truly over for the year. Unlike the summer this evening’s focal points of entertainment are however from finished.
A late October Sunday night in Norwich shouldn't be this warm, the industrial warehouse venue of the Waterfront somehow spiritually transported to the American South as the Blues takes over the packed Studio room.
So, it’s a quiet night, Saturday 25th Oct, around 5:30pm. Just got a glass of red on the go, and the dinner in the oven. Comfy clothes, and just beginning to wind down after a day in the wet n wild windy weather off the north Kent coast.
It’s a Wednesday night in Chicago and you don’t know where your parents are, and the Concord Music Hall has transformed into a battleground, the air thick with anticipation and the unmistakable buzz of metalheads ready for war.
The air inside Rock City was electric before Sophie Lloyd even touched a note. The crowd pressed together, bodies humming in anticipation, stage smoke curling like restless spirits. Sophie emerged first, guitar low, eyes focused yet playful, every movement exuding decade of ambition.
The 3Arena is the location of tonight’s event, the bill - Megadeth and Disturbed. Megadeth an American thrash metal juggernaut, one of the “Big Four” are infamous for their technical riffs, unwavering and intense rhythm and the snarl of the legend that is Mr Dave Mustaine.
The weather is dreary and foggy as we depart for this evening’s mammoth gig in the Telegraph Building in Belfast. It certainly adds an eerie autumnal twist as we prepare for a night of Metal.
With warmer weather ever more a faded memory British Summer Time nudges ever closer to reverting back to good old Greenwich Mean Time we kick off our personal autumn gig calendar with an absolute blinder at Bristol’s O2 Academy.
The Molotovs last night played a sold-out show at Camden's famous Electric Ballroom as they aim for a third UK No. 1 physical single in a row with 'Rhythm Of Yourself'.
When Ally Venable asks the audience "Are you ready for me to play the Blues tonight?" few there would have realised just how jaw dropping the rest of the evening would be.
Let’s start with the headline: a sell-out show at the O2. 20,000 fans packed into the arena. A glorious mix of indie die-hards, nostalgic thirty-somethings, and fresh-faced Gen Z converts.
It's gigs like these that unites metalheads old and young, from the north and south of the country. We take our minibus of excited metalheads, some, like myself, have their kids with them, from the north of the country down to the big smoke of Dublin.