Classic rock is alive and well and living on top of a mountain in Ebbw Vale. Twelve years on from its first opening weekend, Steelhouse Festival – the highest, friendliest and most impressive rock festival in the UK – is still raising its game, peak by peak.
Day 1: Steelhouse – the UK’s friendliest rock music festival
Come rain (and, believe me, it did) or shine, some 6,000 fans were treated to fantastic performances from 22 UK and international bands on one glorious stage in the South Wales mountains. Kicking off the Friday, Dan Byrne’s excellent set was missed by many still setting up camp and getting into the site – and what a great site Hafod-Y-Dafal Farm makes. Sitting at the back of a circular arena, the stage can be viewed from screens in the semi-circular traders’ area, with its great shops and well-priced food and drink, or from the long ‘sun shade’ marquee that divides the arena.
It’s a sign of how friendly a fest Steelhouse is that camping chairs are left by the audience in the sun shade and remain untouched for the day – allowing fans to get up close to their favourite bands and then return again to their canvas sanctuary as they please. The stage itself is flanked by two beautiful oak trees, banners from media partners Planet Rock and two more big screens to make sure no-one misses a moment. And some of the best moments came on the thrust stage which became the rockometer for how strong the band’s performances were. Karma Effect were the first to make the walkway their own: charismatic frontman Henry Gottelier had a second mic set up at the end of the thrust, taking him a good half-dozen rows into the audience and a good bit deeper into their hearts for his efforts.
With Ginger Wildheart absent due to mental health issues, his band The Sinners pulled off their set with a quiet confidence that the fans were sympathetic to. But the Kris Barras Band, fronted by the MMA fighter himself, were far and away the highlight of Friday. The big bruiser showed his ability to express himself with passion, as well as power, through his blisteringly accurate guitar solos. With audience participation a feature of the weekend, Barras set the bar high, in amongst the crowds splitting the fans into red and blue corners to vocally battle their way through This Is My Parade.
Day 2: south Walians take over the Steelhouse stage
A slower start to day two was put to bed when Black Spiders took the stage. Featuring popular Planet Rock DJ Wyatt on drums, the punk rock attitude and tight set were a great balance – the sort of band you could listen to all day long and not get bored. The next two bands were the first of the day’s international acts, both female-fronted: Black Mirrors singer Marcella Di Troia’s jittery and unique performance won over the crowd as the Belgian band blasted through their moody set, but the best performance of the day came from Montreal’s The Damn Truth. With a glimmer of glam and a dip into Southern rock, underpinning Lee-La Baum’s spiritual, Stevie Nicks-esque performance, this was a band talked about for the rest of the weekend.
Local boys Florence Black suffered from poor sound but still played the second-best set of the day, storming through new singles and tracks from their debut album, Weight Of The World. A this-is-how-it’s-done cover of Budgie’s Breadfan was followed by the brooding closer Sun And Moon leaving them just one ripper of a song short of perfection.
Festival favourites and further south Walians Those Damn Crows could have easily been headliners, with their big and slick arena show transferring well to the Steelhouse stage. The fact that there were more audience members wearing Crows merch than anything else over the weekend tells you all you need to know: this is a band on top of the mountain, on top of their game and the sky’s the limit.
Australian headliners Airbourne were as anarchic and as AC/DC as they could possibly be, considering frontman Joel O’Keeffe had a broken toe boot on. But this didn’t stop him being carried on a roadie’s shoulders through the crowds while playing a guitar solo, and opening a can of lager by smashing it repeatedly against his skull. It doesn’t get much more rock‘n’roll than that.
Day 3: Black Stone Cherry and a classic rock supergroup close the festival
The third and final day started off with brilliant sunshine… but by 10am the rain was well and truly in for the day. Still, this didn’t dampen Troy Refern’s fantastic slide guitar show. His is a truly unique band and sound, managing to keep songs inventive and interesting in a style of blues-rock that can so often be predictable. Very impressive.
The following four bands showed the true range of Steelhouse’s festival programming: mid-tempo ambience from Empyre, metal riffage from promising youngsters The Cruel Knives, great soul-influenced rock from the hard-working Kira Mac (much kudos to whom for braving the rain to own the walkway with no-nonsense Northern charm) and crazy prog antics from Icelanders The Vintage Caravan. And then, the best set of the weekend showed the true transformative power of rock. With shamanic showmanship, Cormac Neeson of The Answer delivered rock god vocals, cleansed the audience of bad karma and crouched with the crowd in the mud and the muck before being lifted, spontaneously, onto a fan’s shoulders and carried back to the stage for the final chorus of Preachin’. One hour was not long enough.
Elegant Weapons had to be an impressive outfit to follow the last of the homegrown talent, and on their first UK performance this supergroup – less than a year old – carried off their set like established rock royalty. Featuring members of Judas Priest, Rainbow and Uriah Heep, the set was a masterclass in classic rock performance, finished off with a mass singalong of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs.
Festival headliners Black Stone Cherry pulled off their own unexpected cover moment, a balls-to-the-wall version of ELO’s Don’t Bring Me Down – after having treated fans to a stunning 80 minutes of material from their own extensive back catalogue. Having never sounded better, BSC really did steal the show in the end, debuting new material from upcoming album Screamin’ At The Sky and showcasing their heaviest sound yet.
Playing Wales as often as they do has earned the band a huge following and with guitarist Ben Wells shouting out “Cymru am byth” in his best Kentucky drawl, the rain-soaked audience stayed out in force for the adopted Americans. Frontman Chris Robertson dismissed the 7,000-mile round trip with the simple line, “When the mountain calls, we answer.” And after a festival as impressive as that there’ll be many a fan and many a band answering that call for years to come.
Steelhouse Festival, Hafod-Y-Dafal Farm, nr Ebbw Vale, Fri 28-Sun 30 July.
words JOHN-PAUL DAVIES photos DARREN GRIFFITHS