I was supposed to go and see Arch Enemy in December, but hours before the event the ticket company phoned me to say it had been postponed, as the singer had lost her voice. It was fortunate in a way, since I'd lost most of my hearing the previous day, and metal gigs never help in this respect, but annoying, because I was totally up for seeing them, only to be left to somehow get into the mood to see New Model Army the next day, my need for metal unsated.

They moved the gig to tonight and I tried to keep my metal lust at the right intensity, but I failed. I've been very much in the mood for industrial indie lately, and when I listened to my four Arch Enemy albums the other day, they didn't seem that good anymore.

Worse, this morning I checked the website and message boards, and discovered that Angela had lost her voice again! They'd do tonight's gig, but it would be the first after a few missed ones, and I feared her voice wouldn't have fully recovered. Further, in the ultimatemetal.com forums, one of the fans was complaining that their sets were far too short.

But my faith in metaaaaaal was fully restored. The set was on the short side but not overly so. It took a little while to get going, but once it did, it was blistering, in terms of both content and execution. Angela's voice was even deeper and eviller than it is on the records. I was interested to hear her speaking voice, as I once saw a band with a totally GRAAAAAH! vocalist, but at one point in the set, he said, "Can we have some more on the guitars, please?" in the lispiest most effeminate voice ever. But her speaking voice was also GRAAAAH! Stood beside three males, her stature relieved me of most of my doubts over her gender, but not all of them, because, despite my unwavering straightness, to use cringe-worthy UKC terminology, the whole band looked totally spreadable! (Well, I couldn't see the drummer - I was sensible and stayed well back - but he gets spreadable points for his drumming alone.) Yay!

Other thoughts:

* Normally, I hate watching support bands: the music's generally boring or bad, the band are embarrassingly enthusiastic, and the venue's half empty, and keeps emptying further, with the audience stood still, arms folded, and at worst, yelling for the main attraction. But the support band here, Stampin' Ground, caused a bigger moshpit than Arch Enemy - and hardly anyone was there to see them, since tickets nearly sold out before they were announced as support. As with all the support bands I've seen, the musical style wasn't a perfect match (judging by the fact that I love Arch Enemy, but, while I could see the merit of these guys, they weren't really my thang) and they had altogether too much stage presence. Though they're fairly well known, I've observed this doesn't necessarily an overjoyed audience make - Dio supporting Alice Cooper caused little enthusiasm. And yet these guys had the audience happily shouting, jumping and parting down the middle to attack the other side, and I found myself pogoing and shouting for more in spite of myself.

* Death metallers are my new favourite people. They look great and they're really nice and friendly.

* I always seem to meet doting metal parents in queues. When I were a lass, my parents dragged me to see Jethro Tull in the city ten miles away, and bought me a ticket to see The Australian Pink Floyd because they were concerned about my increasingly hermit-like tendencies, but otherwise, they tried their best to convince me NOT to attend concerts, even those put on by bands they liked. These days, I'm always hearing, "I took my younger one over to Manchester to see The Offspring the other week" and "Yeah, I took mine down to London to see Metallica". Some people have all the luck. The amusing thing about the ones I met this time, though, was that they knew more about extreme metal than I did, and kept going on about meeting Dani Filth!

* Being me, I got totally lost on my way to the venue (I asked some metalheads hunting for a decent pub for advice), and then again on my way back to the station. Then, a stray, friendly and harmless-looking chav asked me for 95p, and, because I was in a ridiculously good mood, and the Arch Enemy t-shirt had been cheaper than I'd expected, I agreed, if he told me how to get back to the station. He did, so I gave him a pound coin . . . and then he asked for another pound, so he could get a burger and chips! Cheeky barsteward!