METAL MAYHEM

 I took my middle son Arthur to see his favourite band play in Cardiff last night. With some trepidation as he's autistic with very high anxiety and not great in crowds, but I was counting on his passion for the band winning through, and it did.

Sabaton provided an excellent show, complete with flamethrowers, blizzards and a tank on stage, not to mention miniature triplane!

Terrible picture as I'm useless with phones, and tbh and rather concentrate on the band.

For me though, the highlight was the first support band Lordi, and I'm so glad we arrived early enough to see them.

I'd obviously heard of them before, through their Eurovision win, but I'd never heard their music before and it was excellent... along with their amazing costumes it really took me back to my early metal days in the 80s, and is just the kind of thing to listen to when painting Oldhammer figures.

Again a bad photo, but you can just make out the wings on the front man.

Here's a better picture lifted off the net.

This was the first metal gig I've been to for about 10 years, and it was interesting to see how different it was to those I remembered.

There was a much wider range of age in the audience, from 10 year olds to 70 odd. It was also interesting to note that I would say only about half had the full metal uniform of leather/denim , patches and big hair... The rest ( like me)  were just in non aligned garb. Whether this is just a reflection on the broad popularity of the band, or a sign of the times where there is no need to proclaim your devotion to one type of music, I don't know. There was also hardly any headbanging, which is probably a good thing, but I was surprised to see it's absence. Also, it was nowhere near as loud as I was expecting....

WHAT DO NAZARETH, RODNEY MATTHEWS AND MINIFIGS HAVE IN COMMON?

Well the first 2 or pretty obvious as Matthews painted a number of album covers for the Scottish band Nazareth in the late 70's, but the latter wasn't clear to me until I took a good look at this figure which has been lurking in the attic for 25 years

I reckon he is based on the cover to No Mean City by the aforesaid band . I painted him to match anyway (base to be finished later). I think I will use this figure as N'aarsh, Vassago's spectre champion.

I went to see Nazareth a couple of times a few years ago in Bristol. Still rocking well.

OLDHAMMER ANTHEM

The latest ripple in the Oldhammer ocean is a challenge by Erny to choose an anthem to announce the entrance of your Oldhammer army as it sends all fleeing before it. As usual I found it impossible to pin it down to one track.

11 years ago I rediscovered my love of heavy metal (or in other words had my midlife crisis) as well as playing with fantasy armies and collected a GW marauder army, which had this track playing every time it took the field




If I were gaming with an Empire, er, I mean Men of the West Army (such as King Amias' force from Thistlewood) then it would have to be this by the greatest metal singer of all time, the late great R J Dio with Black Sabbath




Undead, then this (without the spandex)



Hairy Norse, then this (fantastic band live, check out the synchronised headbanging).


Note the Horned God symbol made popular among metallers by Dio in the 70's (his gypsy granny taught him how to do it apparently), still in use here among 21st century metallers. Makes me wish I still had hair (any hair, let alone long hair)


But overall it would have to be this, back to Dio singing with Sabbath, my all time favourite metal song. Slow start, so skip to 1.29 for the gravelly intro to the main tune if you are in a hurry.....