Metallica are poised to release a live DVD entitled ‘Francais Pour Une Nuit’ (translation: French For One Night) on 23 November. This will be their first ever French concert DVD. It was filmed at the Roman Coliseum in Nimes, France in July of 2009. ‘Francais Pour Une Nuit’ is an electrifying full length live DVD. The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse -that is, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk (Read more…)

Red Hot Chili Peppers, LL Cool J, Kiss Lead 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees. The ballot for next year’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class is one of the most diverse ever: the Red Hot Chili Peppers, LL Cool J, Kiss and Genesis are up for nomination alongside the Stooges, Donna Summer, ABBA, Darlene Love, Laura Nyro, the Chantels, the Hollies and Jimmy Cliff. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after their debut release, so all the candidates released their first single no later than 1984. LL Cool J and the Red Hot Chili Peppers both made the ballot on their first year of eligibility. This is Kiss’ first time on the ballot, and their wait for a nod has frustrated the band and its army of fans. “There are disco (Read more…)

Sonisphere Knebworth ended with a climactic bang thanks to an historical set from headliners METALLICA. A weekend that was described by festival director Stuart Galbraith as having “the best atmosphere I’ve experienced in 25 years of putting on festivals” It has been almost seven years since the last major musical event at Knebworth House (Robbie Williams), and almost 30 years to the day that Led Zeppelin took to the stage for one of their seminal gigs that pulled in 140,000 people. Sonisphere Festival has proved a massive success on many levels, with one being the traffic management. A constant problem for shows at Knebworth House has been (Read more…)

One of the worlds newest and most exciting festival, Sonisphere, have released day tickets that you can snap up for £67.50 on THURSDAY 4TH JUNE at 9AM, and of course this does not include any hidden extra costs like booking fees as the organisers abolished those weeks ago! Fans now have the opportunity to select the day that they would rather put all their energy into ripping it up and generally partying so hard that they can’t manage a second day of it! So whether your preference is Metallica, NIN and Mastodon or Linkin Park, Heaven & Hell and Taking Back Sunday, one thing is clear, whichever day you want to go, it will be a day full of some of the greatest rock music on the planet at the moment.

Sonisphere Festival is set to start touring Europe in less than three weeks, and the festival organisers have already announced the stage splits on the two outdoor stages at Knebworth on 1st and 2nd August (see overleaf), and the schedule of the bands will ensure that you will not miss a power chord from ANY of the acts. There will also be more shenanigans and bands to be announced in the Bohemia area in the coming weeks.

All tickets, including day tickets are available now http://www.sonispherefestivals.com

Sounding like a punch up between Down, Iron Maiden and Motorhead, whilst BLS, Metallica and COC put the boot in…

I.C.O.N have so far shared the stage with Blaze Bayley, Diamond Head, Voodoo Six, Witchfynde, Logan and Zico Chain amongst many others.
Their music can be found on the smash PC driving game ‘MOTORM4X’.
2009 sees the release of their long awaited debut album ’NEW BORN LIE’.

Absolutely blind to the current trends, mixing all the best elements of Metal and hard rock and spitting out their own unique sound…
…Welcome to I.C.O.N.

On Tour throughout 2009.

06.jun.2009 20:00
The Appleby Burton on Trent
20.jun.2009 20:00
Charles Napier Blackburn
21.jun.2009 20:00
Snooty Fox Wakefield
22.jun.2009 20:00
Trillians Newcastle
27.jun.2009 20:00
The Riverside Selby, Yorkshire
28.jun.2009 18:00
The Old Turk Dewsbury
10.jul.2009 19:00
Unity College Burnley, Lancs
30.jul.2009 20:00
The Old Bell Derby
01.aug.2009 20:00
Sanctuary Burnley, Lancs
05.sep.2009 20:00
Franky’s Darwen, Lancs
18.sep.2009 20:00
The Gaff London, N7

One of the defining highlights of last summer’s festival circuit, Pendulum completed 2008 with a sold-out tour that saw them play to a combined audience of over 50,000 people. Now Pendulum can confirm the June 15th release of their ‘Live At Brixton Academy’ DVD that offers an irresistible monument for fans eager to relive the glorious chaos of the Pendulum live experience. Recorded at Brixton Academy on December 4th and 5th 2008, the DVD highlights a full live set directed by Paul Caslin. Caslin was recently nominated for a Grammy in the Long Form Music Video category for his work on Rihanna’s ‘Good Girl Gone Bad’ DVD release. An added feature in the shape of an eighty minute audio CD of the Brixton gigs makes for an essential purchase for Pendulum’s devoted and ever growing fan base. ‘Live At Brixton Academy’ features scintillating performances of Pendulum’s biggest hits and killer tracks to date including ‘Showdown’, ‘Propane Nightmares’, ‘Granite’, ‘Slam’ and ‘Another Planet’. The DVD also features Pendulum’s explosive interpretation of The Prodigy’s 1994 cult hit ‘Voodoo People’ and their incendiary take on the Metallica classic ‘Master of Puppets’. Aside from the standard DVD / CD release, ‘Live At Brixton Academy’ will be also be available as a single DVD / deluxe double CD package that will be sold exclusively through www.pendulum.com as well as an iTunes exclusive format. Further details of both the deluxe version and the iTunes format of ‘Live At Brixton’ will be announced imminently. In the UK, Pendulum’s ‘In Silico’ album debuted at #2 in the album charts, has since reached double Gold status and is fast approaching Platinum. Their single ‘Propane Nightmares’ hit the Top 10 and was nominated for a Kerrang! Award for Best Single. Backed by a number of the summer’s most memorable festival appearances, including Creamfields, Download, Reading / Leeds and T in the Park, Pendulum have become a vital live act – aptly demonstrated by how their gigs have continually moved onto bigger venues on each successive tour. Continuing support from Radio 1 included a special Pendulum documentary that ran over Christmas. Pendulum are also repeating their phenomenal success on the other side of the Atlantic. Appearances on Carson Daly and Jimmy Kimmel relived the growing demand for their live shows created by the contagious reaction to their headline tours and a set at last year’s Coachella. They were also the hot name at this year’s Miami’s Ultra Music Festival where they headlined alongside The Prodigy and Bloc Party. Now Pendulum are set to be the band of the summer. Having proven to be too big for the tents at last summer’s festivals as huge audiences flocked to catch them in action, Pendulum have been elevated to the main stage for this year’s dates at Download (where they’re due to play ahead of Marilyn Manson), V, T In The Park, Isle of Wight and Oxegen. Growing demand for the band has been rewarded with the confirmation that they will headline their first major UK festival at Global Gathering in July.

‘Live At Brixton Academy’ tracklisting:

CD

Intro
Showdown
Fasten Your Seatbelts
Another Planet
Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix)
Propane Nightmares
Blood Sugar
The Other Side
Different
Master Of Puppets
Slam
Hold Your Colour
Tarantula
Granite
The Tempest

DVD

Intro
Showdown
Fasten Your Seatbelts
Another Planet
Voodoo People (Pendulum Remix)
Propane Nightmares
9,000 Miles
Midnight Runner
Mutiny
Blood Sugar
The Other Side
Different
Master Of Puppets
Slam
Hold Your Colour
Tarantula
Granite
The Tempest
Credits

FAITH NO MORE have announced that they will play at this year’s Reading and Leeds festivals. The newly-reformed Mike Patton-fronted outfit revealed on their website that they will play Reading Festival on August 28 and Leeds Festival on August 30. Faith No More split in 1998 but have returned to play a number of festival shows in Europe this summer. The group will headline the Download festival at Donington on June 12.

More about Faith No More
In 1981, Bay Area California musicians Mike “Puffy” Bordin, Billy Gould, Mike Morris, and Wade Worthington formed a band called Faith No Man. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike “The Man” Morris was ousted, the group began calling themselves Faith No More. After going through a series of singers which included Courtney Love, the band was joined by Chuck Mosely in 1983. The same year, Jim Martin was recruited to replace guitarist Mark Bowen. A four-song demo tape recorded in 1984 led to the band’s first real album, “We Care A Lot,” released on Mordam Records in 1985. Within a year the band signed up with Slash Records, and in 1987 their second album, “Introduce Yourself,” was released. The subsequent tour brought Faith No More a good deal of press in Europe, but when the tour was over the rest of the band chose to fire Mosely due to his constant drinking, limited vocal capabilities, and squabbles with bandmates. Mike Patton, frontman of Eureka, California band Mr. Bungle, was a replacement suggested by Jim Martin, who had heard a demo tape that exhibited the long-gone death metal side of Mr. Bungle. Patton was hired in January of 1989. In two weeks he had written lyrics for the songs Faith No More was working on for their next album, and “The Real Thing” was released six months later. The album was a critical success, and the band toured with Metallica shortly, playing in front of huge audiences. Even so, it wasn’t until the song “Epic” was released as a single in January of 1990 that Faith No More’s popularity took off in the U.S., thanks in large part to heavy rotation of the video (which even received some negative attention for a brief scene of a fish flopping around out of water) on MTV. Another successful video for “Falling To Pieces” followed. Members of mega-rockers Metallica and Guns N Roses named Faith No More among their favorite rock groups. The band received a Grammy nomination for Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock performance. By the end of the year, “The Real Thing” had gone platinum in the U.S. In 1991, following the impressive success of “The Real Thing,” Faith No More released in Britain a recording of a live show they played there, along with two previously unreleased tracks, entitled “Live At Brixton.” A video of the same performance called “You Fat B**tards” was released elsewhere. The San Francisco band was now playing large venues worldwide as the main act, their unique sound & Patton’s manic stage antics a draw for fans of all kinds of music. With Faith No More’s fourth studio album, “Angel Dust,” Patton had more time to compose as a full-fledged member of the band, and Gould, Bottum, & Bordin, thanks to the success of “The Real Thing,” had more confidence in their ability to create the album they wanted to. At the same time, Martin began to become dissatisfied with the direction that their music was going, and often did not show up at scheduled rehearsals. Gould was sometimes forced to fill-in guitar parts, and ultimately Martin did not have much input on “Angel Dust,” with the exception of the guitar-heavy “Jizzlobber.” In the summer of 1992, after the release of the album, its first single, “Midlife Crisis,” played regularly on MTV and radio. It was followed by videos for the b-side “Easy,” which was very popular in Europe, and “A Small Victory.” The latter, though an excellent video, was almost entirely overlooked by MTV, perhaps because neither song supported the hard rock image of the band prevalent since “The Real Thing,” and MTV U.S.A. favors music that is easily categorized. Meanwhile, Faith No More was part of the biggest tour of the year, opening for rock giants Metallica and Guns N Roses. After that tour, on which they received lukewarm responses from fans of the main acts, they embarked on tours of the U.S. and Europe as headliners to smaller crowds. In the end, there was no single on “Angel Dust that measured up to the success of “Epic,” and the album did not sell as well as “The Real Thing” had in the U.S., but it did sell enough copies to go gold. It was even more popular in Europe and Australia, outselling “The Real Thing” in Britain. By the time the touring for “Angel Dust” was complete, the rest of the band agreed that Jim Martin was holding them back with his lack of enthusiasm for the direction their music was taking. In November of 1993 he was fired. For 1995’s “King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime,” Mr. Bungle guitarist Trey Spruance was recruited. However, once the album was recorded, however, he left the band before touring began. The reasons given for his departure varied depending upon whom you asked; Faith No More maintained that Spruance was unwilling to commit to a long, worldwide tour. Trey claimed that he was ready to tour, but the others decided he wasn’t right for the band, and never really made him a permanent member in the first place. Dean Menta, a former Faith No More roadie & guitarist for the band Duh, was Spruance’s replacement. Though “King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime” reached number one on the charts in Australia, and spawned such overseas hits as “Evidence,” the album was hardly noticed in the U.S. Videos were made for “Digging The Grave,” “Evidence,” and “Ricochet,” all songs with commercial potential, but which were virtually ignored by American MTV. A less than enthusiastic response to shows in the UK prompted the band to cancel the second portion of the European “King For A Day” tour, although band members insisted that this would provide an excellent opportunity for them to get back in the studio & start working on their next album while they were happy with their current line-up. Over the next two years, rumors of a breakup were rampant as several members of Faith No More spent time with various other projects. Drummer Mike Bordin toured with Ozzy Osbourne, Mike Patton toured with Mr. Bungle in support of their new album & released two solo works, and Roddy Bottum found success with his Imperial Teen. Once again they had to find a new guitarist. “Dean had been our guitar player and worked great for the tour, but when it came to writing, we found that we worked differently,” said Bill Gould. They settled upon Jon Hudson, a friend of Gould’s and former member of Systems Collapse. The band’s sixth studio album, “Album of the Year” was released (June 1997), along with singles and videos for “Ashes To Ashes,” “Last Cup of Sorrow,” and the electronica-tinged “Stripsearch.” Successful tours of America, Europe, and Australia ensued. In the early months of 1998, break-up rumors spread even more intensely than usual. There was speculation that the band members’ many side-projects were taking their toll, and interest in Faith No More was waning. On April 19, 2024 Bill Gould began spreading the following by e-mail and fax:

“After 15 long and fruitful years, Faith No More have decided to put an end to speculation regarding their imminent break up… by breaking up. The decision among the members is mutual, and there will be no pointing of fingers, no naming of names, other than stating, for the record, that “Puffy started it”. Furthermore, the split will now enable each member to pursue his individual project(s) unhindered. Lastly, and most importantly, the band would like to thank all of those fans and associates that have stuck with and supported the band throughout it’s history. “

Now they are back!

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