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REVIEW gig Black Stone Cherry Carnival of Madness, Nottingham

The Carnival of Madness - An Emotional Display of Excellence

Published by Blaine Marshall

The Carnival of Madness is an annual tour of Hard/Alternative Rock bands that has seen previous headliners such as Theory of a Deadman and Evanescence throughout the past 6 years, though it’s never gone outside the US before. The inaugural UK edition just took place, boasting an incredible Hard Rock lineup of Black Stone Cherry, Shinedown and Halestorm.

First up are the ever-confusing Halestorm. Each time I see the Pennsylvania quarter, I leave with a different taste in my mouth. When I first saw them play Rock City’s main hall, the execution of the heavier material such as “Mz Hyde” and “Freak Like Me” felt sub-par alongside fantastic performances of the slower numbers such as “Break In” and “Here’s To Us”, and I left the show feeling ultimately bittersweet. They then supported Alter Bridge at Nottingham’s FM Arena and I was blown away by Lzzy Hale’s aggressive vocals. However, at Sziget Festival last year, they sounded awful and the new-material-only setlist was somewhat boring.

Now, in January 2016, back at the same arena where I was blown away 26 months previously, Lzzy absolutely smashed her performance again, with screams that could tear a house down. Arejay (drums) is of course on point as he makes his job look like a piece of cake, including a huge drum solo. Again, the setlist is questionable, taking only 3 tracks from ‘The Strange Case Of…’ and nothing from their self-titled debut, but if we choose to focus on performance only, Halestorm nailed it and absolutely belong on this tour.

Each and every time the topic of ‘great singers’ comes up, I’ll show absolutely zero hesitation in declaring Shinedown’s Brent Smith as, in my opinion, the second greatest voice in modern rock (Myles Kennedy takes gold, if you were curious), and this Carnival of Madness show is another shining example.

From the massive bruiser “Enemies” to the classic balled “Second Chance” or the rifftastic “Cut The Cord”, Brent’s voice is without question the highlight of Shinedown’s incredible 50 minute set. In no way is this implying that the rest of the band weren’t great – they were brilliant – but Brent’s just on another level (there’s a stratosphere joke in there somewhere…).

I could spend hours trying to think of a criticism to mention, but for Shinedown, there really just aren’t any. An incredible performance as always that I can’t wait to re-live at this year’s Download Festival. Go see this band.

Kentucky hard rock giants Black Stone Cherry emerged on stage hidden behind a huge sheet which served – successfully – to peak everyone’s excitement. As they often do, the words “Here comes the rain” open this well-deserved headline set, and the sheet finally drops to the main riff of “Rain Wizard”.

The next 8 songs which formed the main part of the set were a great balance, taking in parts of all four previously released albums, including my lesser-played favourite, “Change”. Attendees of the tour were also among the first to hear “In Our Dreams”, the lead single from upcoming 5th album ‘Kentucky’, which sees a worldwide release on April 1st. If “In Our Dreams” and “The Way Of The Future” are anything to go by, ‘Kentucky’ is going to be great. An electrifying drum solo courtesy of Mr. Young closed the main set.

The most significant event of the entire night directly followed the drum solo. Chris’ solo acoustic performance of top tearjerker “Things My Father Said” was the first of 3 tracks which formed the most emotional 15 minute section I’ve ever witnessed. Wherever you look, there are phone torches alight and people crying, simply overcome by the sheer amount of passion. The trio of songs was completed by “Ramblin’ Man” from the new album (and, coincidentally, the name of the UK festival they will headline in July) and “Peace Is Free”, featuring the wonderful Lzzy Hale.

Fifteen tearful minutes later, the band go back to the heavy stuff, closing off their set with breakthrough anthems “White Trash Millionaire” and “Blame It On The Boom Boom” from 2011’s ‘Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea’.

One feature of Black Stone Cherry shows that is likely to remain largely unchanged is the fact that they like to end with “Lonely Train”, their first single and an appropriately raucous set-closer. This time however, things were slightly different, as the band went straight from the closing notes of “Lonely Train” to the opening notes of “Ace of Spades”, performing an excellent, well-received cover of the Motorhead classic in tribute to the fallen icon.

Black Stone Cherry are one of the best modern hard rock bands you’ll ever see, and I would recommend catching them sooner than later, because if the frequency with which they appear in bigger and bigger slots at Download Festival (2008, 09, 11, 13, 14, 15) isn’t a sign that they’ll soon reach headline status, I don’t know what is.

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