NLC (Noize Level Critical) Rockin’ for the Children 2024
NLC (Noize Level Critical) Rockin’ for the Children 2024
(sponsored by Blackstar Amplification)
The Old Cold Store, Castle Rock Brewery,
Nottingham
Saturday 12th October 2024
Live Review by Mare Grills
This very special festival is organised by the wonderful Dave Tonge with the intention of raising money to benefit Children’s Charities – RACPA UK (Rock Against Child Pornography and Abuse) and others, not the big, well known ones, but local grassroots care for kids with special requirements in the areas local to the people who attend.
In the past it was held at The Maze in Nottingham which was an intimate, fun venue with amazing staff and a brilliant atmosphere. There have been a few years when, for various reasons there was a break, but in 2024 it revived, it came, it conquered. The former landlords of the Maze helped introduce Dave to the management of the new venue, The Old Cold Store. It’s a fantastic space, with The Goldings next door and part of the venue only a hop (get it?), skip and a jump from the Railway Station.
This weekend was always going to be messy, meeting with longtime beautiful friends for a weekend out together, so I apologise in advance to the bands that I missed due to :-
- being quite hungover from the Friday night pub crawl,
- spending quite a lot of the afternoon at an NHS walk-in centre and
- walking nine and half miles around the city to actually get to, from and back to the venue.
The bands that played at this cracking small festival did so to support the work that these Charities do, and so even though I missed a chunk, the feedback from the audience and the fact that I do like people to go to see live bands for themselves, I will put links to the band Social Media sites so that you can find out where they are and what they do – investigate and enjoy.
if you’re really lucky there may even be some of my terrible photos.
The Order of Play was as follows:-
Pariah On Fire,PariahonFire: Music
Silverjet,
The Midnight DogsThe Midnight Dogs – Facebook
Powderkeg
New Generation Silverstars,
NG26,NG26 – Facebook
The Senton Bombs,The Senton Bombs – Facebook
Heartbreak Remedy,Heartbreak Remedy – Facebook
Syteria,Syteria – Facebook
Falling Red,Falling Red – Facebook
The City Kids,The City Kids – Facebook
The NLC All Stars
THE MIDNIGHT DOGS
They were fast, fun and tight. The crowd interaction was great and the audience loved them. They played good, heavy, bluesy rock with George Thorogood and the Destroyers/Dr Feelgood vibes. Tasty guitar, solid drums and they were clearly enjoying themselves so we did too. The lead singer has a great voice, I loved listening to him, crashing in with ‘Centre of the Universe’, then launching into ‘Let’s go’ – upbeat and fun, great guitar; it was at this point that I put my notes away and just enjoyed the moment.
HEARTBREAK REMEDY
The frontman has a fantastic voice and the band gives solid, melodic musicianship underpinned by thumping skillful drumming. Good and heavy with soaring guitar riffs. They are definitely getting added to my playlist. The frontman was excellent, the whole set was a proper crowd pleaser and everyone was singing. I Loved them, if solid, bright rock and roll is your thing, you’ll love them too (no pictures on account of not being able to get close enough to the stage, they are that good) I am really looking forward to seeing them at Call of the Wild Festival in 2025 if I don’t get the chance of seeing them again beforehand.
SYTERIA
Formed by Jackie (Jax) Chambers of Girlschool we could expect some great rock. The lead singer has a great voice and the band works so well together, bearing in mind that two sisters are in the line up, one of them being the drummer. I really enjoyed it, being told at one point to ‘calm my tits’ by one of my friends’ who wasn’t getting it. It’s good to see female fronted rock bands although sometimes they seem to try to ‘overdo’ it, (with notable exceptions) and in this band, Julia wasn’t trying to be a bloke – she’s lovely, feminine and friendly. Their Halloween song had everyone joining in, including me at the top of my voice, think that may have been when I was told to calm down Musically the band is professional and solid, great timing and really entertaining, they had a few issues with equipment, but as you would expect from such seasoned performers, dealt with just beautifully. They were so much fun. Oh, and I got one picture – Yayyyyy – yet again, I couldn’t get to the front, same reason as the previous band. But just look at how much fun everyone’s having.
FALLING RED
So – I think the bassist was the singer of Heartbreak Remedy, but I’m old and was on my third large red wine after an exhausting day so I couldn’t be sure! I love this band. They played a brilliant set, had the whole audience rocking, musically really great, entertainment 11/10 just wonderful and – for their last song, they gave the children at the festival permission to say F**k but not to repeat it on the outside as they introduced ‘Fuck right off’ not sure if this is the actuall name of this song, but what the hell. A fantastic performance of precision rock with great crowd interaction. I will be at the front when they play Call of the Wild Festival in May 2025……maybe it wasn’t the red wine that made me wonder about the dual appearance??? Check out their FB pages
THE CITY KIDS
The band gave yet another amazing performance, they seem to have been the rock band that Dave Tonge has been able to rely on. I have only been attending since 2016, but the City Kids have always been here. JJ Watt gave another consummate performance – such a great frontman of a band that deserves far more attention than they get. I’ve seen them loads of times, rock/punk/sleaze with Scottish undertones always giving an amazing stage show. They were also joined by Julia from Syteria, for a cracking cover of Abba’s Mamma Mia. And they’ve got a cowbell – just a mo – could the drummer be from Falling Red?
I regret that I didn’t manage to get a picture of the coolest (and loveliest) bassist, stalwart of the City Kids, Berty Burton – but you don’t need a picture when you can go and see that beautiful smile for yourself.
This is an amazing friendly festival with wonderful reasons for being here, all the volunteers work so hard to make sure you have a great time and all their efforts raise money for children who need that extra help, this year in excess of £5000, Tickets for next year are already 50% sold.
It’s fun, fantastic and even though I’m a ‘southerner’ and only see many of these lovely people maybe once a year, they still walk in fear that I will return.
LINKS:
Promoter:
Venue:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Mare Grills and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
