Alestorm & Voyager (Wed 11th May 2011 @ Enigma Bar, Adelaide)

[Voyager]

I'd never heard of Voyager before this gig, and I'm struggling to think of a good reason why I did not know about them. What can I say. Voyager are FREAKING AMAZING. Progressive metal from Perth, they boast a long curly haired, lead singer and keys player, an attractive AND talented female guitarist who did epic solos, two awesome male guitarists and back up vocalists and a kick-ass drummer. All together a pretty sexy package both in the flesh and in talent.

Truly the highlight of this gig for me. A few songs toward the end of the setlist they played "something silly" a melody mash-up of a bunch of different random songs including Michael Jackson, the Ship to Shore theme, and my personal favourite, a metal cover of "You're The Voice" from John Farnham. How lucky am I for having seen two fo my favourite artists cover this amazing song in the last month? Pretty freakin' lucky.

Voyager *****

"Hi, I'm Gavin, and I'm an alcoholic". With every second song being virtually an ode to their collective love of rum, Alestorm's "Pure Scottish Pirate Metal" really showed Adelaide what we've been missing out on in terms of memorable gigs.

Our last piss-poor metal concert was Cradle of Filth where Dani Filth was on and off stage all gig chucking his guts up cos he was high on something. Then he simply walked out on the gig, and the band was left to do a 20 minute instrumental on their own, which truly was the highlight of the show.

Alestorm prove that you can get yourself in a state but still put on a good show - because the fans should come first (especially when they paid x amount of money to see the damn show). Gavin passes around his bottle of "Captain Morgan" rum and then announces to those who took a swig that 'you realise you all now have hepatitis". 

"We all know Alestorm gigs are massive sausage feasts". Well with the amount of testosterone in the room - yeah, you're right - wanna be anymore exclusive? You have female fans too, y'know. 

I'd been front row since the opening act, but as soon as Alestorm started I was jousted out of my prime position by a crowd of drunk, rowdy, testosterone-charged males who, eager to get close to their pirate idols, and in pursuit of their own enjoyment, sabotaged the enjoyment of others. Perhaps y'all don't see it like me, but if you don't stake out a spot in the front row at the beginning of the gig, then you suck it up - you don't joust other fans out of the way so you can act like a drunk dickhead.

This is by far the roughest mosh pit I've been in, and don't get me wrong, it thrills me that Alestorm are able to rouse that sort of enthusiasm from a crowd. However, I strongly believe in not being a dickhead in the moshpit by not flipping moshpit etiquette the bird. 

Next time I'm bringing burly pirates with me to ensure that my front row stakeout isn't sabotaged by filthy landlubbers.

Alestorm *****