Tipped to be one of the hottest new acts for 2008, last month saw hundreds of people gather to see NME darlings, The Courteeners perform in front of a sell-out crowd at city club, The Met Lounge.

Although the temperature outside dipped to below freezing levels, things soon heated up when the first few acts began to emerge.

Main support came from super-slick rock and roll band, Vincent Vincent and The Villains, who’s vibrant, hip-swinging tracks ‘On my own’ and ‘Pretty Girl’ left a lasting impression on the crowd.

After short break between sets and a couple of drinks later, fans began to hoard on towards the dancefloor where indie sensations, The Courteeners took to the stage.

With a notable resemblance to fellow Manchester rock hero, Liam Gallaghar, Courteeners front-man Liam Fray quickly glugged down his Jack Daniels, grabbed his guitar and bashed out the first track of the night, Acrylic.

Polished guitar riffs and captivating lyrics, it was suprising to see fans reciting lyrics word for word, bearing in mind that their debut album is yet to be released.

There is no doubt that songs such as If It Wasn’t For Me and Kimberly will go on to become true indie anthems.

The Peterborough crowd were fuelled with passion when Liam solely went on to perform a string of acoustic tracks.

Fray, who is renowned for making controversial headlines revealed a softer side to him, commenting on Peterborough’s ‘beautiful’ landscape. He told local press that “Peterborough is the urban equivalent of heaven, it has a lovely cathedral.”

Tieing up the night with an ecstatic performance of their latest track, “What took you so long?”, fans went on to meet and chat to Liam after the show.

by Nicola Fox

Whilst I’ve been hooked on Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike for a few years and am looking forward to seeing more of the fourth game, it’s easy to forget that the second game had a significant impact on my life as a gamer, as it did for many others. Although the title is rightfully praised for it’s evocative backdrops, memorable music and flawless structure, it’s the characters of the game that take centre stage - the inevitable crushing defeat a newcomer may face when meeting a particular adversary would lead them to use their opponent’s supposedly superior moveset to battle through their next playthrough…only to be stricken down by an opponent previously thought to be a pushover. The 12 (or 16 if you’re playing Super) stars of beat ‘em up history are undoubtedly what makes the Street Fighter II series so special, as it demonstrates a remarkable balancing act of strenghs and weaknesses between characters which makes it hard for someone to pick a character who can easily beat all corners with little need for tactical variety (and let me stress that by “someone” I mean your typical man on the street - no doubt the obsessives would argue about tiers and unfair advantages, but when you only have time (and money) for a couple of plays at a seaside pier you don’t think about these things.)

In order to appreciate the variety of these characters, and the balance of movesets and their various blends of damage, range, defence and whatnot, one needs to do the only sensible thing, and dust off their cabinet/copy of Anniversary Collection/XBLA library/SNES/MAME database for a hands-on trip down memory lane. Which is just what I did today, digging out my ROM of Champion Edition and taking Ryu through some of the most cherished memories of any veteran gamer (again, it’s worth remembering that despite the increasingly anal perfectionists compiling excruciatingly detailed databases of damage conditions, frame data and God knows what else, this game used to be played much more casually by people who couldn’t afford to piss away 10ps memorising such details, so my recollections will have a hint of the average player about them.)

Firstly, Street Fighter II (CE, but I’ll probably continually shorten it to SF2 during this post) is difficult. On the one hand, this might seem as something of a surprise, especially coming from a 3rd Strike obsessive who whips through 8* arcade mode to kill time, but on the other hand it’s worth remembering that this is an arcade game first and foremost, designed to get ever harder so that it coaxes ever more money out of determined players. Now at first, it doesn’t seem like a particularly hard game. Oh sure, it’s a bit of a challenge, as it’s meant to be, but the challenge comes from learning about each of your opponents - when they are dangerous, when they are vulnerable - and exploiting the windows of opportunity you find…and that process of learning and exploitation won’t eat up too many of your credits, because the specials aren’t so damaging that you’ll die before you’ve understood what makes your opponent tick. Following this evening’s playthrough, discovering the pros and cons of each character’s moveset is what makes the game so appealing; Blanka’s ridiculous somersaulting leap into the air where he comes crashing down on the player might catch them by surprise at first, but maybe once they know to expect it they could perform a speedy getaway (say, a Spinning Bird-Kick to the other side of the screen if they’re using Chun-Li) before it’s too late.

However, if there’s one point in CE where the difficulty of the game and the importance of knowing the movesets hammers home, it’s during the final few enemies. Sagat, Vega, Bison and Balrog all have some ridiculously strong specials: Sagat’s uppercuts, Vega’s “climb around the background then dive” thing, Bison’s Psycho Crusher, Balrog’s ridiculously strong punches - they all mess up a player’s health bar really badly if they’re not expecting it, and they all caused me a lot of finger cramp as I tried to escape these deadlier moves. I think that, of those four, it was Vega who received most of my anger and hatred. Doing massive dives and taking huge chunks from my lifebar is one thing, but doing it after climbing up the background, which no-one else can do? Grr. Every time he began the climb, my heart sank as I prepared to get annihilated. But anyway, whether it’s Vega or another boss - or even whether it’s a boss or a standard character - the variation of fighting styles always encourages you to keep changing your own style, all without feeling too unfair. Well, usually.

I’ll admit that there’s not much point to this blog, it’s just a little nostalgia trip that I thought I’d share with you (not that I’m saying that my thoughts were clouded with nostalgia when playing - SF2 is as intense an experience today as it ever was). Nevertheless, I hope you’ve enjoyed what I’ve had to say. Before I go though, I’ll offer a few playing habits I found myself sticking to during this playthrough, for anyone who wants to get back into old-school SF2 (shoto) action.

Strong normals are more valuable than you think. Normally I stick to specials to keep enemies at a distance and create damage, and sometimes I use light normals when pressured, but strong normals frequently proved to be a convenient escape, and one that only required a single button-push.

Throws are great for causing damage and creating distance. I mainly know this because during my playthrough I was on the receiving end of quite a few, and it was usually when I only had a small chunk of my lifebar remaining; it eventually led to me keeping my distance if I was in danger, lest a throw finish me off. However, if you find yourself cornered, a throw is a convenient way to create some space and back off whilst they’re recovering.

Tatsu escapes from corner traps are fairly handy. Essentially as useful an escape as a throw, they’re best used when the enemy is airborne (natch). Again, Blanka’s crazy somersaulting is an apt example of when to use a tatsu to get the hell out of there.

Best of luck!

It was most certainly the time to ‘Pump up the Valium’ as hundreds of NOFX fans swarmed through the doors of Brixton Academy to see the ground-breaking punks perform after a distant 4 year gap from the UK.

Although transportation to the venue was halted after closures were made to the main tube line, the outcome didn’t seem affected – it just built up more anticipation.

First band on stage were British hopefuls TAT who wowed the crowds with their punk-rock based image and intriguing style.

The band are more than set to be a huge success with their catchy yet controversial melodies such as ‘Champagne, Cocaine and Strawberries’ and the rhythmic ‘Live for Rock and Roll’ With a special hardcore appearance from Tatiana’s 90-year-old grandmother who positioned herself by the stage, the band then introduced fellow rockers, The Loved Ones.

Unfortunately for The Loved Ones, their set was let down dramatically by the poor sound quality. Whilst the Philadelphian rockers appeared to be having delightful time on stage performing tracks such as ‘Jane’ and ‘100K’, masses of NOFX fans sat down for the duration, eagerly waiting for Fat Mike and crew to surface on stage.

Once ‘The Loved Ones’ departed the stage, NOFX fans went wild and as heaving crowds began to emerge up front, they barely realised the notorious Fat Mike had already took place on stage!

Dancing lesbians plus a minuscule banner, Fat Mike then began to choke out his usual stage banter, toilet humour and crowd humiliating antics. Mike then took a brief moment before pounding out crowd favourites, ‘Dinosaurs will die’, ‘Liza and Louise’ and ‘Linoleum’ in true punk rock style.

All the rage as fans were squashed, mosh pits began to circulate and taking a step back you would see that Brixton transformed into NOFX fuelled frenzy. The hype was almost over after a 20 minute or so performance of the unpopular, ‘The Decline’ and then Fat Mike returned to his infamous ranting.

‘Eat the meek’, ‘Dying degree’ and ‘Franco un American’ got the crowds energized and they were wowed by a cover of Rancid’s track ‘Radio’.

The show concluded with several repeats of ‘I wanna be an alcoholic’ and an invigorating encore consisting of ‘Fuck the Kids’ and ‘The Brews.’

I’d say that the best thing about NOFX live is the atmosphere and Fat Mike’s riotous stage presence. Their return to the UK was most certainly worth waiting for! By Nicola Fox

American hardcore punks, Amen recently joined forces with London unsigned metal favourites, The Inbreds and techno speed sensation DJ $peedranch on the fully anticipated ‘No Barricades & No Bullshit 2007′ tour.

Although the tour was struck by tragedy when it was announced that three of the band’s close friends and family had passed away, Amen continued the tour and thrashed out tracks in honour of their memory.

Indestructible front-man, Casey Chaos is famous for his wild antics on stage, aggressive appearance and anarchistic views but fans were privileged to be up close and personal with the band in such intimate venues across the country.

I caught up with the band at The Park, Peterborough (Sunday October 28, 2007) where the band was also joined by city horror punk favourites, The Ruined. Although the turn-out was mediocre, the reaction from the crowd was truly substantial.

City band, The Ruined opened the show blasting out hits from their ‘Hear Lies The Ruined’ album including the legendary ‘Poison Ivy’ and ‘Dead by Dawn’

The band were followed by Metal Hammer acclaimed ‘Britain’s newest stoner rock heroes’, The Inbreds who were out to party hard. As for the one-man laptop DJ - $peedranch left the crowd feeling in disarray.

With Halloween pending, Casey and the band took centre stage and drove fans wild opening the show with the ever famous ‘Coma America’.

After trashing the stage and horrifying the club owners, Chaos then gave fans the opportunity to choose what they wanted to hear. The words spat from the mouth of frontman as he belted out tracks such as ‘Piss Virus’, ‘California’s Bleeding’ and ‘Buy Amen’, raging fans from the city were relishing in Amen hype.

Amen closed the show with ‘The Price Of Reality’ and Chaos chatted to fans at the merch stall after the show.

by Nicola Fox

All-night frenzy at Rock City – Saturday, December 22, 2007. 8pm-6am

Christmas celebrations went off with a bang as thousands of hungry rock fans swarmed through the doors of Nottingham’s Rock City for another fun fuelled distortion all-nighter party.

First up on stage were Profane who were feeling a bit under the weather as they had spent “two weeks suffering dirty, filthy Dublin flu” according to vocalist, Phil Bretnall. The band supported Shikari on their tour over in Ireland blasted out tracks from their outstanding album, ‘The day we scorched the sky’

Following Profane was Brighton’s metal gods, Architects who got everyone in the festive mood when they appeared on stage dressed as Santa dancing to Shakin Steven’s very best, ‘Merry Christmas Everyone.’

Wall of death and circle mosh pits, Architects got the crowd in a spin after a dose of ‘Buried at Sea’ and ‘The Darkest Tomb’.

Your Demise took stage in the basement just before fellow St Albans’ Shikari were to perform. Front man, George Noble sported a Bergkamp Arsenal t-shirt and strangely told fans that their songs were like a ‘reggae band at a trance.’

However, blood certainly didn’t run cold as hyped up fans jumped on stage to grab the mic belting out tunes such as ‘Diamonds are forever, your not’ and ‘No half measures.’

Crowds flocked into the main stage area for a bit of Shikari action and the famous glow sticks made a welcome return to Rock City.

Electric pulsations, eccentric fans and sirens filled the venue as Rou, Chris, Rob and Rory spilled on to the stage. Battering glow sticks the fans went into frenzy as the performed stonking hits from their 2007 album, ‘Take to the skies.’

‘Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour’ got the fans circulating once again alongside ‘Return to Energiser’ and the outstanding ‘Sorry You’re Not A Winner’ after a rather legendary string of tracks, Rou took time out to get a Mexican wave going.

Returning to the stage with ‘Today won’t go down in history’ and ‘Jonny Sniper’, Rou placed himself up on the speakers reciting the famous lyrics, “and still we will be here, standing like statues” dedicating their whirlwind performance to the heroes that were, the security crew.

The show closed with a showdown of Slade’s, ‘Merry Christmas everybody’ and snow began to fall from the roof to dust the sweaty crowd with some festive joy.

But the night was most certainly not over as a drunken performance from Nottingham’s, Lovvers caused a stir in the basement. There was no sound from the mic and vocalist, Shaun refused to leave the stage as gig-goers began to ‘boo’ them off stage. Even the sound tech guy struggled to throw the band off stage and had to get his fists out to Shaun. It was most amusing to see.

Lost Alone cheered fans up with renditions of Deep Purple and classic rock songs. The dreadful Lovvers were long gone and fans began to get back into the festive spirit.

DJ Shark and Blitz provided the entertainment for the rest of the night. Although the party became a bit of a blur by 4am, Christmas festivities continued until the crack of dawn. Rock on, rock city!

by Nicola Fox