Power Quest

That Rock City was still filling up when the “Ascension” intro tape, signaling Power Quest's entrance, fired up is perhaps unsurprising as far as festivals go.  Maybe a couple of hundred punters had rolled into the venue and, to be fair, forty or fifty had gathered right down the the front to greet the band. Bursting from the taped intro into a fired up “Find My Heaven” the band announced their arrival and the opening of the second Melodic Rock festival under the Firefest banner in fine style. Dogged by a crap sound for the first half of the set, once again as is the norm at this type of event, the band flew through seven tracks, highlighting both of their latest releases “Magic Never Dies” and “Neverworld”. I’d previously reviewed “Magic…” and rated it highly, so was keen to see how they fared on the stage. And they made the two and half hour drive instantly worth it. Power Quest were slick and professional, full of energy and obviously up for a top day out and some serious rocking to boot. As the sound balanced out the band were in full flow, rattling through some quality music and I suspect gaining a few new fans in the process. Set closer “Neverworld” came all too soon due to the strict timings but the band had set the standard in no uncertain terms, Firefest II was showing early promise…

Balance Of Power

Unlike Power Quest, I’m not really that familiar with Balance Of Power but suffice to say that their collective experience in the biz was obvious. I believe that this was only the second performance with new singer Corey Brown, but they all looked utterly at ease on the stage. The band cruised their timeslot, with a majestic swagger, blending expansive, orchestral keyboards and lightning guitar. Covering three albums “Heathen Machine”, “Perfect Balance” and “Ten More Tales Of Grand Illusion” the band chose well with a blend of Rock and Melody. “Shelter Me” and “Daybreaker standing out as person al highlights. Vocally spot on, this was quality stuff, I’m listening to the (recently purchased) CD “Perfect Balance” and quickly becoming a fan. Having taken the Firefest baton from Power Quest, the band lifted an ever increasing crowd and, as a result, I for one am keen to know more, which is the whole point really.

It had been some twenty odd years since I had last seen Shy, at the time promoting the then recently released 'Excess All Areas' album and opening up for Gary Moore. To be honest, and despite the quality release that was 'Sunset And Vine' from earlier this year, I had forgotten just how good they were. Well Firefest proved much more than a gentle reminder to those in the same position as myself as the band delivered an utterly compelling set.

Culling material from just three albums, the aforementioned 'Excess All Areas', 2002's comeback album 'Unfinished Business' and, surprisingly perhaps, only one song from 'Sunset & Vine', Shy took their allotted forty five minutes in the spotlight and wasted not a single second. Kicking off with the 'Unfinished Business' paring of 'Breakaway' & 'Skydiving' this was a band on top form. Tony Mills was a huge presence, vocally throughout, owning the stage, and providing the perfect foil to Steve Harris' guitar pyrotechnics. Older tunes such as 'Emergency' & 'Breakdown The Walls' hardly seemed to have aged and with a stunning 'No Other Way' closing things out, Shy took Rock City by the throat and rocked it to within an inch of its life....

Best described as a radio friendly, blue collar rock band, a la Springsteen, Bon Jovi et al, for only their second ever show (the previous night's Pre-Show Party had been the first) on UK soil Blue Tears, after the superlative set from Shy, surely had one of the hardest jobs of the day. That they simply did not fold under the task is much to their credit, unfortunately as a three piece, albeit temporarily augmented with the addition of Paul Hodson on keyboards, the stage simply looked too big for the band from a visual perspective.

That is not to say that the music Blue Tears delivered wasn't good - it was. With a set list culled from both the classic Blue Tears debut album of 1990 (Take This Heart, Thunder In The Night, Blue Tears and of course Rockin' With The Radio) and the recently released Mad Bad & Dangerous To Know opus (Rock You To Heaven, Kisses In The Dark, Live It Up) it would have been hard to go wrong and with guitarist/vocalist Gregg Fulkerson in fine voice Blue Tear's certainly rocked hard as promised and entertained the by now quickly filling up Rock City, its just it was all fairly static in comparison to what had gone on before.