This year’s event was the 4th  Stonedead Festival. Since it’s inception back in 2018 the crowd numbers have swelled to around 4500, which site wise is about the optimum number, and the event continues to go from strength to strength.

Most of the success is down to the dedicate crew of organisers who tirelessly work to get everything together. The rest is down to a very active social media presence with past attendees raving about the festival and how well things are run. So whilst some festivals fell by the wayside this year, Stonedead had the ‘sold out’ signs up well before the event weekend.

Covering the day events along with our Live Editor Dave Wilson was our intrepid roving reviewer and melodic rock expert, Andy Nathan. Andy takes up the story as the blazing sun shone down…

The opening band at Stonedead is always chosen from a ‘battle of the bands’ type fan vote and it didn’t surprise me that These Wicked Rivers won the vote as there is a buzz building around this Derby-based band.

Their set up marks them out from the rest-  the hirsute band, on a hot day, clad in hats and overcoats and on a stage complete with vintage patterned rugs and even lampshades. The image was so charismatic in itself that it mattered little that singer John Hartwell was soft spoken and diffident in his stage announcements.

But this would just be a gimmick, were it not for the quality of their music. A rich, bottom heavy southern-influenced sound somewhere between Clutch, Black Stone Cherry and Robert Jon and the Wreck, with keyboards adding extra colour in a way which reminded me of Monster Truck.

Both the openers ‘Shine On’ and ‘Force of Nature’ combined a mid-tempo but weighty backing with well-structured melodies, and the new single ‘Black Gold’ was very accessible, albeit with some similarities to Kris Barras’ trademark ‘Hail Mary’.

On the other side were the slow, brooding epics- ‘When The War Is Won’, the bluesy ‘Testify’ featuring harmonica and ‘Don’t Pray For Me’, concluding with a snatch of Neil Young’s ‘Hey Hey My My’. It was a highly impressive start to the day from a band I am belatedly discovering the appeal of.

Kickin Valentina were the one American band on the line up – a replacement in the slot vacated when Thundermother were offered the Scorpions/Whitesnake US tour. They obviously love these shores, having visited only in May. Indeed to their credit this was the first of two gigs in a day as they were on their way to Sheffield for HRH sleaze.

Following the sleaze rock of Kickin’ Valentina, southern rock of These Wicked Rivers the crowd were ready for something a bit heavier. Who better then that NWOBHM stalwarts Tygers Of Pan Tang. They hit the stage with the bass intro of ‘Love Clown’ rattling out before launching into a twin guitar attack that had heads nodding and fists pumping in equal measure.

The set was a good mix of the old and new with founding member, guitarist Robb Weir, leading from the front. As the sun shone the melodic rock flowed with highlights aplenty including ‘White Lines’, ‘Gangland’ and ‘A New Heartbeat’, the title track from the band’s latest EP.

Vocalist Jack Millie was in great voice and joked that Robb Weir had spent the last 40 years looking for Susie before the guys took us back to 1980 when ‘Susie Smiled’. As that finished the band were told they only had time for one more song and as Jack said it had to be ‘that’ song.

As Rob Weir cranked out the open riff of ‘Love Potion No 9’ the crowd clapped and danced along for all they were worth. They also provided addition vocals on the chorus as the guys rounded off the set in style. Tygers pulled of a great set in the sunshine and their traditional rock fare was the perfect fit for the Stonedead crowd.

As the stage was changed, we were treated to a fly-past which has become a bit of a tradition at Stonedead. This year though the team had really outdone themselves as we were treated to three low passes by the Lancaster bomber from the Battle Of Britain fleet. It was a sight to behold and one that won’t be forgotten in a hurry. Someone later suggested that we will need a Space Shuttle next year to top that!

Next up were a band who put a modern twist on the traditional rock sound and another that proved to be a perfect fit for the Stonedead massive. I was starting to think that The Treatment and I were never destined to meet. I have missed them on multiple occasions for various reasons, the best being the night I got waylaid in Manchester due to the Christmas light switch on in the city centre, what were the chances!

The rocking ‘Let’s Get Dirty’ started things off well and the band had the crowd on their side from the word go. ‘Love Don’t Stay’ kept up the pace before the twin guitars of Tagore and Tao Grey laid down the dirty groove of ‘Eyes On You’.

Frontman, Tom Rampton, was having a ball in the sun kept chat to a minimum other than to point out how grateful the band were to finally hit the Stonedead stage after missing out in 2021 due to a last minute Covid outbreak in the band.

Older number ‘The Doctor’ had the crowd singing along before the set was brought bag up to date with ‘The Wrong Way’ from the ‘Waiting For Good Luck’ album released last year.

The set was rounded off with another oldie in the shape of ‘Shake The Mountain’ which again had fists pumping across the arena. It may have taken an extra year for The Treatment to finally hit the Stonedead stage and me even longer to finally catch the guys live, but it was well worth the wait on both counts.

Andy Nathan reports…

Like both the bands before them H.E.A.T were offered a slot they were originally slated to fill in 2020, but couldn’t because of travel restrictions. Since then it has been a case of ‘meet the new singer, same as the old singer’ and this was my first chance to see Kenny Leckremo since he returned to replace Erik Gronwall.

It was his rotten luck that his microphone initially cut out and indeed the band were bedevilled by sound issues with Dave Dalone’s guitar (arguably already carrying what needs to be a two guitar live sound) too low in the mix.

The singer was a new man with an energy that was missing from his stage performances in his early stint with the band.   He bears more than a passing resemblance to a young Joey Tempest and, tossing his waist length hair, attracted many female admirers.

The setlist has had an almost total revamp since I saw them pre-pandemic and opened with a trio of anthemic bangers from 2020’s HEAT II in ‘One By One’, ’Rock Your Body’ and ‘Dangerous Ground’.

However his evident pride at rejoining bandmates and friends for the first time in over a decade spilled over into over excitement, and in matching his predecessor’s  hyperactive histrionics he appeared to be overdoing it and a couple of times disappeared between songs for a quick refuelling.   Normally I am not so keen on their moody piece ‘Redefined’ but on this occasion it was a relief he could get some of his breath back.

I’ve been a HEAT fan for years so it was great to see people reacting so well to a couple of songs from the brand new ‘Force Majeure’ album in ‘Hollywood’ and ‘Back To The Rhythm’ with more big hooks and choruses,  together with the more keyboardsy ‘Come Clean’.

However my dilemma was epitomised when ‘Straight To Your Heart’ from their debut was restored to the set after a long absence for Kenny’s return. He focused on charging about at the expense of singing and despite the efforts of bandmates to fill out with backing vocals, those parts he did sing were horribly thin.

He continued his hyperactivity to the end, going into the crowd during the possibly overextended crowd participation number ‘Beg Beg Beg’, though the way his final star jump ended with him sprawled on the stage floor confirmed my view he was trying too hard. There is no denying H.E.A.T went down well but perhaps as a diehard fan I was holding them to a higher standard, which they fell short of.

Stone Broken are a known quantity, seemingly always on tour or on festival bills, and apparently had been approached year after year for Stonedead but this was the first time the affable West Midlanders had managed to fit within their schedule.

Watched by a substantial number of their so-called ‘Broken Army’ of fans, the advantage of just a 50 minute set was an absence of filler but just one post-grunge influenced, yet catchy and melodic anthem after another, starting with the title track of current album ‘Revolution’, with taped vocal effects giving way to a strong chorus, and ranging from the tried and tested – ‘Stay All Night’ and ‘Heartbeat Away’ -  to the recent – ‘Black Sunrise’.

‘Let Me Go’ showed their heavier side and ‘Stronger’ was proof they have more than one killer ballad in their armoury before ‘Devil You Know’ and ‘Worth Fighting For’ picked up the pace nicely.

So far, so familiar, but there was an unexpected moment when singer Rich Moss called on stage a couple who had won a competition to watch them from the stage and invited them to address the crowd. While the bloke was happy to holler ‘Stonedead, Stone Broken’, his partner had loftier ambitions, going down on one knee to propose.

That gave the simplicity of the ballad ‘Wait For You’ added poignancy and Rich allowed the crowd to take over big parts of his near solo rendition before resuming rocking out with traditional closer ‘Not Your Enemy’, ending an exemplary set showing the band at their best.

Dave Wilson reports…

One band I was looking forward to seeing were Vandenburg. Their latest album, 2020, released, unsurprisingly, that year had some excellent song and knowing Adriaan’s back catalogue, on paper we were in for a top set. Kicking off with ‘Shadows Of The Night’, which was my highlight of the 2020 album, things were looking good. The album version had Ronnie Romero on vocals, but as he was gracing the stage with MSG later Mats Leven was on the mic here.

‘Freight Train’ followed and it soon became clear that Mats was no Romero and whilst not the worst vocalist in the world he did struggle with range. He also wasn’t the most engaging and didn’t really get the crowd on his side.

They did build up a bit of a head of steam over the first few numbers, however that was quickly lost when they hit their version of the Whitesnake classic ‘Sailing Ships’. Issues with the acoustic guitar held up proceedings then once the song finally got going it soon became apparent that Leven was no Coverdale either as he absolutely murdered the vocal!

Things never really improved after that, even ‘Judgement Day’ and a god awful version of ‘Here I Go Again’ couldn’t save things. Polite applause was the best the crowd could muster and the queues at the food stands started to grow as thoughts turned to food rather than rock, never a good sign. They did throw in a cover of Zep’s ‘Rock n Roll’ at the end which piqued some interest, but it was too little, too late.  A disappointing set from a band I know are capable of so much more.

Possibly the most hotly anticipated band of the day were Those Damn Crows who had been a late addition after The Wildhearts had pulled out. The amount of TDC T-shirts in the crowd suggested that they had a lot of friends in the arena and that their billing as ‘Special guests’ was justified before a chord had been struck.

‘Send The Reaper’ opened the set and the band had the crowd in the palm of their hands from the get go. The fast pace continued with ‘The Fighter’ with Shane Greenhall stalking the front of the stage and whipping up the crowd.

After a quick between song interlude to say hello and point out the guy in the crowd dressed in an inflatable penis suit, it was back to the music with ‘Someone, Somewhere’ which then segued into a great cover of The Buggles ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ complete with a mass singalong on the chorus.

Both band and crowd were in their stride now and Shane and the guys could do no wrong. ‘Kingdom Of Dust’ and ‘Sick Of Me’ kept the pace and momentum going. They also allowed the twin guitars of Ian ‘Shiner’ Thomson and Dave Winchurch to show their fretboard skills, especially on the riff underpinning ‘Sick Of Me’.

‘Don’t Give A Damn’ and ‘Who Did It’ then pushed the crowd into overdrive with heads banging and fists punching in equal measure. These two big hitters prove why this band are tipped for greatness. Both are arena rock classics that carry the crowd along in a live setting, some bands take years to write songs like this, but Those Damn Crows appear to take it in their stride.

After a blast through ‘Be You’ Shane then took to the piano for a set highlight with a fantastic version of ‘Blink Of An Eye’ which built from the quiet intro to a full-on band affair with a climactic finish. The guys then slipped in a new track ‘Wake Up’ from their forthcoming album ‘Inhale/Exhale’ which went down a storm.

We were on the home run now and ‘Sin On Skin’ and ‘Long Time Dead’ found Shane getting up close and personal with the crowd at the barrier and beyond, he does like to wander! That just left ‘Rock n Roll Ain’t Dead’ to round of the evening and a more apt title would be hard to find. Those Damn Crows lived up to their ‘Special Guest’ billing and then some, job most definitely done!

So how do you follow that? With 50 years of rock history and a back catalogue that most could only dream of. Step forward Michael Schenker and his current incarnation of MSG to round off the festival with a masterclass in classic rock.

Opening with an instrumental track may be a risky move for some but this is Schenker and ‘Into The Arena’ is the perfect opening shot, demonstrating his fretboard dexterity perfectly. Ronnie Romero then entered the stage for ‘Cry For The Nation’, Ronnie can be an acquired taste. but tonight, he was on top form and put in a great performance.

The familiar strains of ‘Doctor, Doctor’ then rang out across the Showground which led to men of a certain age bouncing along, no doubt against their GP’s advice! It was an early outing for the classic UFO track, but there were plenty more to follow later in the set.

Things were then brought more up to date with ‘We Are The Voice’ from the last Schenker Fest album. Another couple of recent tracks proved to be a bit of a set highlight for me. First we had ‘Sail The Darkness ‘ and that was followed by the incessant, irregular rhythms of ‘Emergency’ from the most recent MSG album ‘Universal’.

Most though were here for the classics from Michael’s vast back catalogue and ‘Lights Out’ was greeted with a huge cheer and much crowd participation. ‘Armed And Ready’ kept things rocking along and Schenker was playing up a storm.

Ronnie Romero put in a great vocal performance on MSG’s tribute to Ronnie James Dio ‘The King Has Gone’ which proved to be the last of the more recent tracks. From here on it was UFO classics all the way and no one was complaining.

‘Rock Bottom’ kicked off the UFO fest, complete with an extended solo spot from Schenker in the mid section. He may have been rocking for 50 years but his passion for playing live is as evident as it always was. With a smile on his face and his fingers a blur on the fretboard of his Dean Flying V, he proved, if any proof was needed, that he is one of rocks all time greats.

‘Shoot, Shoot’ was another of my highlights and was quickly followed by ‘Let It Roll’ and ‘Natural Thing’. The set, and indeed the day, were rounded off with a fantastic version of ‘Too Hot To Handle’, the perfect end to a red hot day, both musically and weather wise.

Stonedead once again proved to be a triumph. The organisation was a credit to the dedicated band of volunteers who commit their own time and effort for no reward other than the satisfaction of knowing they put on a top festival. The social media hype and plaudits from those in the know was completely justified once more. All I can say is that you better be quick to secure  tickets for 2023 as another sell out is assured.

Review by Dave Wilson and Andy Nathan
Photos by Darren Griffiths