Monsters of Rock 2006

Well that was a curate's egg. Arriving what I though was stupidly
early, Roadstar (Hurricane Party) and Ted Nugent had already been
and gone. Then Queensryche, Thunder, Journey and Alice Cooper
all stomped through thoroughly competent, crowd-pleasing sets,
albeit translating "MoR" as "middle of the Road". Daniel,
you'd have loved it.

Ah, the crowd.

The MK Bowl happily hold 50-60 thousand. Something went badly wrong
with this one. Was it having Download next week the problem? Or that it
clashed with an important 6-0 victory in the football, the Espom
derby, the cricket and an unseasonably for June, lovely sunny day?

At a rough guess, and using rammed sports halls in Germany as a
comparison, I'd say there were no more than 15-20 thousand people
there and a goodly proportion of those were up on the bowl enjoying
the sun, so getting close to the front wasn't exactly difficult.

As for Purple: immaculate and professional as usual. Yes, Gillan was
straining for some of the notes and yes, it was a crowd-pleasing festival
set list, but there were enough quirks to keep it interesting.

Oh, and the sound, at least within the caravan-circle of burger vans
in the main area, was the best I've ever heard in that size of field.
The lack of delay towers made it a bit subject to wind direction up on
the outer banks, but hey, what do you expect! And it was nice to hear Don
cutting through for once.

On the macro-economic level, I think there's a fundamental shift in the
economics of touring going on in the UK. There are so many bands now
catering to every corner of music, and kids are able to get up close
to their favourite bands in a local club for a fiver. So it takes Road
Runner to put ALL their bands on three stages at the same time plus a
few gnarly headliners to pack >100,000 into a muddy field in the
Midlands. Blame Myspace for democratising music?

Pics to follow, dunno how they'll turn out: new lens :)