'DOA UK'
London 24/9/2011
Review By Matt Hill


Is this the event of the year?  It has to be up there and one we at MGTV look forward to and put in our diary as a must!!

It's approaching 7:30 pm and METAL GODS TV are at The Dean Guitar Party in Walthamstow, London.
Matthew Speed from Dean Guitars welcomes everyone and introduces the comperes for tonights proceedings, Emma Barnett of Total Rock and our very own Mick The Beard who gets the evening off to a start and introduce the first band on the bill ZOCALO, who launch into their style of southern groovy rock which gets the ever swelling crowd bouncing. During the last song of a very a pleasing set guitarist Peter 'Riffmonkey' Humphries wanted some fun in the pit so did what any self respecting rock n roll musician would do, and that is jump in demonstrating the best way to connect with the crowd, a memorable and well received opening band..

East London were then treated to an energy filled set from SPIT LIKE THIS, with some much enthusiasm and catchy tunes they won me over. Their appearance and style resembles 80's hair metal, regarded as a swear word by some, but with a performance of this calibre and energy if you missed these you missed out.

ARCEYE were next up, there were technical problems to start with but nothing distracted these Shrewsbury metallers from delivering a sterling set, and delivered a pleasing assault on your ears with their blend of thrash and death metal, playing tracks from their album 'The Divide Between Chaos And Order' a band always worth catching live.

The evening progressed the beer was flowing, then dudes dressed as ladies graced the stage, had I drank that much? It wasn't my eyes this was ARTEMIS but for tonight they were FARTEMIS, and played a great fun set, it was a party after all and they certainly mad us feel we were at one, and people really were headbanging to a metal cover of Madonna's 'Express Yourself' I knew it was a Madonna song because the lady at the bar told me, ahem !

This was a DEAN guitar party right and I'm sure you'll agree with me that the most respected musician to ever play a Dean guitar was, Dimebag Darrell R.I.P, so it seemed very fitting that we would be treated to a Pantera tribute band and we saw that in 101% PANTERA (the only tribute band officially endorsed by DEAN GUITARS), they were tight and played the songs with expertise and was a lovely site to see the wall of DIME amps and cabs behind them, the whole venue from front to back joined in with the familiar 'are you talking to me' as they played 'Walk' I'm sure many people like myself were drooling over the union jack Dean guitar being used on stage, which was to be won in a raffle prize, if only it were me!

The final and headlining band of the evening needs no introduction, torchbearers of British metal BEHOLDER, gritty no nonsense stuff and a sound as big as frontman Simon Hall's beard, they delivered an array of songs from their album 'The Awakening'.
Simon mentioned that we'd heard a lot of covers throughout the evening and now it was their turn by playing Lamb Of God's 'Redneck' with head banging in abundance I don't need to tell you that this went down extremely well. BEHOLDER certainly knew how to work the crowd and whipped fans into a frenzy, a mosh pit was then commanded by frontman Simon, and people were more than happy to oblige

BEHOLDER concluded their set by playing Dio's , Holy Diver. What a way to end a metal party, playing a tribute to arguably one of THE best voices in metal.

After some words of wisdom and thank you's from Matthew Speed of Dean Guitars, it was time for the hot and sweaty hordes to filter out from what might just be one of the best metal parties of the year, how long til the next one?


D.O.A. UK is now an annual event so make sure you are there next time