KISS 

Live at F1 Grand Prix, Melbourne

16.03 2008

AUSTRALIA

A large proportion of about 100 000 F1 Grand Prix fans stayed to the see American rock legends in full costumes in action. It was hard to pinpoint exact numbers but it was later announced that more than 10 000 people upgraded their standard F1 tickets for “KISS pole position” passes which gave closer access to the stage. The Melbourne show was the first stop on the bands 35th anniversary ALIVE 35 -world tour and it was definitely a good place to start. Australians have always been big KISS fans and the band still has a huge following there.  What also made this show very special is the fact that this was the bands first outdoor concert in Australia since their very first tour there in 1980.

Live review and pictures by Marko Syrjälä

This is an interview with Benedictum singer Veronica Freeman. It is the first ever with her in metal-rules.com and is dedicated to all Benedictum lovers. Their stunning new album SEASONS OF TRAGEDY has just been released. We talked about the bands background and future as well as about the new album.

Interviewed by: Anders Sandvall
Promo pictures provided by: Sound Pollution
Thanks to Joakim Stabel at Sound Pollution for setting up this interview

Swedish Death Metal act Degradead has recently released their debut album called TIL DEATH DO US APART and for the first time the band is interviewed here in metal-rules.com. The object of my questions was singer Mikael Sehlin and here is what he had to say.

Interviewed by: Anders Sandvall

Promo pictuers taken by: Gustaf Sandholm Andersson
Promo pictures provided by: Sound Pollution
Thanks to Joakim Stabel at Sound Pollution for setting up this interview

Alan Nemtheanga

from PRIMORDIAL

Interview by HannTu

Questions by Lord of the Wasteland and Hanntu

All live pics and words by HannTu

Nightwish

and Pain

The Astoria, London

26th March 2008

Live pics by Asif Salam and HannTu

Review by HannTu

It’s a pretty weird pairing – the immensely popular, symphonic goth rockers Nightwish on the same tour with oddball industrial techno metal band Pain. The man behind Pain is of course the multi-talented Peter Tagtgren; founder of Swedish melodic death band Hypocrisy, former vocalist of Bloodbath, one time drummer for Malevolent Creation, studio owner and producer extraordinaire, and a whole slew of other side projects. I was pretty damn excited to interview him, but I wasn’t going to attend the show originally, until a last minute photo pass turned up.

The commercial appeal of Nightwish is impossible to overstate. Three consecutive nights in London is extremely rare – Iron Maiden play two nights regularly, but the Unholy Alliance 2006 (Slayer, In Flames, Children of Bodom, Lamb of God) and this year’s Black Crusade Tour (Machine Head, Dragonforce, Arch Enemy) are the only two that I can think of offhand. Trivium and Annihilator might have done three London nights last year. Some people I spoke to turned up to all three nights, which is pretty impressive. The signing session in Zavvi (formerly Virgin Megastores) earlier in the day was packed with people eager to get stuff signed and close-up shots of the band. One girl even brought her guitar to be signed!