May 21, 1999 - Manchester University MDH, England

by James - james@griffiths32.freeserve.co.uk

Friday 21st May 1999
------------------------------
Soulfy/Kill II This/Medulla Nocte - Manchester University MDH

The first thing that I noticed about tonight was the fact that there were a lot of older, traditional metal fans in attendance, the types to wear a Pantera T-shirt, tight jeans and dodgy Hi-Tec basketball boots, but it takes all sorts and it's good to see that heavy music still appeals to older people in a country dominated by bland, thoughtless dance music.

Medulla Nocte
-------------------
I was really interested to hear these guys, my friends hardcore band had played with these guys a few months early but I couldn't go. I have only heard a few songs on my friends car stereo and what I heard sounded really heavy. Despite the somewhat death metal sounding name they are I suppose Metallic Hardcore and what I saw of them (3 songs) was really good. Unbeknown to us while we were milling around the bar area they had already started so I was a bit pissed of at missing most of their set, but it turned out that they were only for about 20 minutes anyway which is a shame seeing as how they are so much better than the next band.

Kill II This
------------
Guilty of having one of the dodgiest names around, Kill II This have seemed to rise in popularity over the last few months and the hometown favourites returned to Manchester with the expectation that everyone knew their 'Shit' as they put it. Fact of their matter is that their 'Shit' is infact just that. Kill II This are a second rate Machine Head with crappy techno backing tapes and a singer who cannot move and sings like he is in Saxon or some other appalling dungeons and dragons 80's metal band. Aside from the fact that they play to backing tapes and all of their songs suck, they do have some really good riff's they just need to get rid of the singer, change their name and ditch the backing tapes which also contain backing vocals I might add. They also have one hell of a babe playing bass which can only be a good thing. But credit to them they did excite a good portion of the crowd but sadly not me.

Soulfly
--------
There was a rumour that our favourite tubby godsquader (Fred Durst) was in attendance tonight but that was rubbish (phew!) By the time Soulfly took the stage the crowd had grown to almost capacity which must be somwhere near to 1,000, considerably more than for System Of a Down a day earlier. They kicked off with Eye for an Eye and that got the crowd going. The last time I saw Soulfly they played far too many Sepultura songs and it was good that they toned it down this time, sticking to 'Spit', 'Attitude' and an excellent version of Chaos A.D. which turned into 'Headup'. It was also cool to see Mikey Doling, I have been a fan of Snot since I got the album in July 1997 and it was such a shame that this was the closest thing I will ever have to seeing Snot. It was cool the way Soulfly played 'Attitude' and then 'The song remains insane' as they both have the same lyrics. For Bleed they invited Dana Wells little brother up to do the Fred Durst bit and he started of pretty cool doing the 'BLEED' bits. When it came to his part though he sounded like he was singing something else but what do you expect really, he is only a kid after all. Another cool touch was when they palyed 'Umbabarauma', at the end Mikey, Max and Marcello all got the traditional Brazilian drums out and rythmically banged out the end of the song. As an encore they played 'Fire' and 'No', the crowd joining in enthusiastically for the 'No motherfuckin Hootie and Blowfish' part. Overall I thought tonight was better than System even though I love System far more than Soulfly.

Well there you go, I hope I didn't bore you all too much.

James