Wednesday 1st August 2012
Steelhouse festival is a very new 2 day festival (this being its second venture to bring live open air rock to the valleys), which this year took place on the picturesque yet cold mountain top of Hafod-y-Dafl farm. If you were crazy enough you could even camp there, like a proper real life festival, but with sheep.
Newport-bred band the Dirty Youth had the difficult task of playing the afternoon slot of the festival, but they didn’t let this perturb them, and tried to rouse the crowd with upbeat future punk style anthem ‘Requiem of the Drunk’. This band have had the pleasure of touring with Korn and after extensive European gigs it looks as if they are heading in the right direction, yet sticking to their Welsh roots. With temperatures dropping at the UK’s highest (in terms of altitude at least) music festival, the crowd took the band’s advice and were drinking their way to creating the imaginary cider coat. The Dirty Youth are infectious: not sticking to any particular style, they mix rock, punk and attitude to make you want to go to their after party.
Revoker brought the rock vibe harder, belting out their set and performing some impressive matrix moves on stage: guitarist Chris Green was some sort of flexible phenomenon and would occasionally bend back into a right angle. Clearly enjoying their audience, they raised the bar by inviting Michael Paget from Bullet For My Valentine to join them for a song. Revoker have had some very good things said about them and I could see why; the valleys had never been rocked so hard. With the energy of a Port Talbot power station they delivered electrifying thrash and heavy metal.
The mountain sky darkened, with fairground rides and food stalls lighting the horizon. The crowd swelled despite the rainfall and arctic conditions as Feeder headlined the festival. Performing a mix of old songs such as ‘Buck Rogers’ and ‘Feeling A Moment’, and also some new tunes from recently released album Genuine Freakshow, blankets were rife amongst the crowd but this didn’t seem to get them down and Feeder had them in the palm of their hands from start to the finish. A very soggy yet happy crowd returned to their tents that night.
Words and Photo: Jody Tozer
It's actually a three day festival and you completely omitted the fantastic first day featuring the amazing Dressed To Kill (legendary KISS tribute), Dizzy Lizzy & Guns 2 Roses….