First up were Huge Baby. Coming across as a mixture of ideas along the lines of Neurosis the Baby were certainly an interesting proposition. However the band did not come across well to the loyal Napalm crowd. Perhaps due to a lack of interaction between band and audience the Baby’s ended up being nothing more than an annoying noise as opposed to a band wanting to get the fans on their side.

Huge Baby’s failure may have something to do with the next support act, The Haunted. This band have received some rave reviews but have still break through into the consciousness of the average metal fan. However everyone’s interested to see what the band can produce and they don’t disappoint. Basically they take early fast Slayer and bring it slap-bang into the nineties. Thankfully the singer doesn’t growl but prefers a shouting technique which furthers the Slayer comparison. Perhaps not subtle enough yet to break out of the underground, The Haunted do begin to drag a bit, but a few slower numbers along the lines of 'Dead Skin Mask' would fix that. Impressive if not essential

Napalm have been everywhere and done it all. They’re back with new album Words From The Exit Wound, but tonight is more of a greatest hits package than a promotional tool. Slamming the tunes out from their huge back catalogue with such an obvious joy that it’s difficult not to get involved. With Barney they have one of the greatest frontmen about. Sure he can’t sing, but he does dispense with the usual frontmen posturing and instead has a real connection with the audience, to the extent of answering most of the stageward banter, and the show has a real homely feel. All the classics are aired: - 'Breed To Breathe', 'Greed Killing', 'Suffer The Children', 'The Kill', 'Hung', 'I Abstain', 'Scum' et al. Along with this come a crop of new songs such as 'Infiltrator' and 'Next of Kin to Chaos' which all fit in nicely to the Napalm sound. When the band end with 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' after an encore which consisted of about 10 songs you get the feeling that Napalm will be here for ever. Trends will come and go but when it comes to extreme metal Napalm Death hold all the cards. And there’s no safer hands.

Before I review the gig I will review the build up as it was expertly organised and didn't cause any problems what so ever. OK, the gig was advertised as being at the Barrowlands, it said so on the tickets on the posters and in on teletext. But days before the gig took place it was moved to the Garage although I heard people saying it was at the Cathouse I even heard some people saying the TUNNEL. Fortunately I found out before the day of the gig that it had been moved but there were about fifty or so people waiting at the Barrowlands. Hopefully they made it to the correct venue.

Now on to the actual gig , I will start with the support acts or rather act well not really an act as both the support bands had pulled out and so it was left to a DJ to keep the audience occupied until the main attraction took the stage. This was too much for the DJ as most of the people in the audience looked bored, very bored. After about 2 hours ROB ZOMBIE hit the stage in his usual fashion by bursting onto the stage during the first intro. The crowd suddennly became unbored and immediately started a mosh pit , The first couple of songs were of the new album Hellbilly Deluxe and as such I did not know them that well as I (unfortunately) did not own a copy of said album. Much mosing later they kicked in with an unintroduced song from White Zombie album La sexorsisto which everybody took a couple of seconds to recognise as 'Welcome to planet Motherfucker'. This is when the crowd seemed to change from a moshing pit to a killing pit as everybody just went mental.

This was followed by the new single 'Dragula' which kept the atmosphere and energy from the previous songs going and makes Rob Zombie one of the best live acts I have ever seen. Towards the end of the set Rob starting talking to the crowd and dealing with the usual hagglers which suggest songs such as 'freebyrd' and the like and the asked the question......FREEBYRD or CHILDREN OF THE GRAVE?? Take a guess which one won. Yes of course it was the best rendition of Children Of the Grave I have heard live. They then entered the end of the set with the almighty song 'Thunder Kiss '65' This song was recognised by everyone immediately as an ALL time Zombie Classic.This was the end of the set but it was an very enjohable night. I thought that the organisation of the bands or something other than a DJ to fill the 2 hours before Rob Zombie took the stage would have been good, but other than that I would say that he is a very very good live act to see.

Thanks to the Ripcage guys for the tickets, even if they were dodgy photocopies - they did the job. I came in a couple of minutes into the Ripcage set, having never heard them before. I was pleasently surprised - there are so many crap bands in Glasgow that finding a good one is nice. They are very much a mix of styles from thrash to hip-hop to modern Korny stuff. If I remember, there was a bit of a Sepultura incluence also. Quite rare for a band I haven't heard before, my interest was kept throughout the set due to the constant changing of styles. They're certainly worth giving a go if they're playing near you.

Unfortunately by the time The Bone Machine came on I was busy with other things, so I didn't get to really hear much of them. A good sign though: I wasn't thinking 'this is fucking awful'.

Quite a respectable turn-out here tonight for Brucie, although it's by no means packed - where's the rest of the Maiden fans? Tonight's support was from up-and-coming British band Kill II This. 1 really hadn't heard them at all before tonight, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were really good! Their sound was plagued with technical problems, though - from mics failing to work and cutting out, to feedback, and an overall poor sound from the PA. The band made the best of a poor situation though, and played a great set. Being in the position of a support band can be bad, because the crowd can be apathetic and nasty a lot of the time - this was not the case in general for Kill II This though, who still showed their quality despite numerous equipment problems.

Brucie's got the best live band now that he's had for years - with Adrian Smith in the band, along with Tribe of Gypsies members, he's got a powerful unit. The first five or so songs of the set were from his new album, and the songs joined by some prose read by Bruce. It takes a lot of balls to play a good twenty-five minutes of your set of material from a new album - uninterrupted, back-to-back songs. It worked though - the crowd loved it although some, like me, were standing wondering what the hell was going on. Brucie apologised to the crowd for the lower than normal volume of the gig tonight - apparrently due to inadequate in-house PA here in G2 - Things are not going well for the soundman tonight! The band then proceeded to play older songs from Bruce's solo career for the rest of the set - 'Laughing In The Hiding Bush', 'Tears Of The Dragon', and songs from the 'Accident Of Birth' and 'Tattooed Millionaire' albums. The crowd were great - there was a good crowd down the front (and surprisingly young!) going mad to every song.

At the end of the set, they burst into some Maiden songs - it's great to see Bruce playing some now in his set - when I saw him last in '94 and '95, he didn't play any at all. Mind you, with former Maiden guitarist Adrian Smith in the band now, he'd get lynched if he didn't. '2 Minutes To Midnight' was great to hear, as was the encores of 'Powerslave' and 'Flight Of Icarus' - the band were clearly having a great time, and Brucie and Adrian seemed to really enjoy playing them. Brucie's voice was top notch tonight, hitting the unbelievably high notes we've come to expect of him. The crowd loved every minute of it, especially since none of the Maiden songs played here are played by Maiden now.

If ever there was any doubts about Brucie still having what it takes, tonight shattered them all.

I arrived at the Cathouse just after twenty past eight, only to find that I'd missed not one, but BOTH support bands! Considering the doors opened at seven, both Tribute To Nothing and Radiator must have been on bloody sharpish.

Anyway, on to other things. I can't remember the last time I've seen the Cathouse this busy for a gig - it was absolutely packed! I didn't expect Pitchshifter to attract this size of crowd. When they hit the stage with opener 'Microwaved', the place went completely mad. A large chunk of their set tonight came from their new album,'www.pitchshifter.com', with not that much older stuff present.

This gig had a really cool vibe about it, and a large part of that was undoubtedly the sheer size and enthusiasm of the crowd. Pitchshifter were damn tight tonight - there's no way you could fault them for their playing. In a way though, their set was a bit too note perfect for me - I kinda prefer it when bands sound different live compared to the way they do on their albums - it makes it more interesting. But then again, Pitchshifter do use a lot of technology in their music, which would probably account for that album-like sound.

One interesting part of the set came when they played a remix of one of their own songs - weird, but cool. Pitchshifter are probably one of the few bands in this genre who could do that. The turnout tonight shows just how popular Pitchshifter are getting - and deservedly so.