Maid Of stone – Sunday. Due to having the delight of interviewing Elles Bailey after her set, I was unable to catch the Black Spiders. So I took some time out to await the arrival of Phil Campbell And The Bastard Sons. For many, this is where the weekend started to fire up. Everyone had great expectations of this set; unsurprisingly, we were not disappointed.
Phil Campbell And The Bastard Sons
With Phil having played lead guitar in Motörhead for 41 years, from 1984 until they disbanded following Lemmy’s death in 2015, there was only going to be one outcome this afternoon. Though the Bastard Sons have released a number of their own albums, there was only one band’s music that the audience wanted to hear this afternoon, and with the opening chords of Iron Fist, they got it.
In many ways, the easiest thing to do would here will be to just write down the set list and say, ‘There you go. What more do you want?’ Because the set was a pure celebration of Motörhead, whether it was the big hitters such as Ace Of Spades, Born To Raise Hell or Killed By Death, through to some of the older or less played numbers such as Damage Case, Stay Clean and Going To Brazil.
Threatening a jazz version of R.A.M.O.N.E.S, they started the song slowly, playing with the crowd before ripping into the punk Metal anthem dedicated to the boys from New York City. Yet there were still surprises to come with a fast and furious version of Hawkwind’s Silver Machine.
Just looking at the band, you could see the level of enjoyment that they were all having out there, whether it was Phil guiding matters from the sidelines with a sly nod of the head and a hidden grin or Joel Peters on vocals hurtling himself around the stage.
The ‘sons’, Todd, Tyla and Dane Campbell, backed up the energy with blistering performances and none more so than when they returned for the encore to close their set, and Dane kickstarted the familiar drum intro to Overkill.
This was a set of nostalgia for some and pure awesomeness for others who had never seen Motörhead and, of course, never will now. But this is the next best thing. Absolutely and by a country mile.
Maid Of Stone Festival 2023 was held over the weekend of 21-23 July 2023. MetalTalk’s Adrian Stonley, Paul Monkhouse and Robert Sutton were reporting from Mote Park.
All Photography: Robert Sutton
Early Bird tickets are available for next year’s festival held over 19-21 July 2024. Tickets are available from here.
All MetalTalk Maid Of Stone 2023 coverage is at https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/maid-of-stone-festival-2023
