Mayhem Festival
- Rock Metal Machine
- May 31
- 5 min read
Artists: Crashdiet, Crazy Lixx, The Cruel Intentions, Toxic Rose, Smokin’ Snakes
Venue: London, 229
Date: 16 May 2025
"This was a really excellent festival and great to see it going so well from the off. I understand they are planning to have a similar event next year and I will definitely be up for it. Bring it on!"
There has been much excitement about this Scandinavian Sleaze orientated festival with every band being from Sweden. It’s all the nicer for me, as one of the promoters is a lady I used to go clubbing with back in the day, someone I know is passionate about the music and not doing it for the money.
Openers Smokin’ Snakes are a relatively new band, having been going for three years, and although I have been playing their stuff on my radio show, I have never seen them live before. This is indeed their first show in London. The singer Brett Martin looks South American and sounds and has quite a few moves like Blackie Lawless. The drummer Mackay Gee, who does a lot of stick twirling, looks like a young Phil Lewis. Sadly I do not have any pictures of Gee to prove it, the lighting in this venue is a lot like a night club and there is no pit with a very high stage, so it’s as much as I can do to get clear pictures of those who come and stand right in front of me. The experience for the audience though is great, the sound is good and the height of the stage probably means that people can see the band no matter how far they stand back, and that’s what matters. Smokin’ Snakes’ material is old school Hard Rock, and live they sound a lot more like W.A.S.P. than they do on record. They look like a seasoned band from the off and a lot of the audience were singing the words to their songs. As they go off stage the lady behind me says “I enjoyed that!” Say no more!
Toxic Rose are a familiar band, having been playing at the HRH festivals in the recent past, more of a Metal band wearing a lot of leather and studs. While certainly a tad heavier than Smokin’ Snakes, they are still old-school with, mercifully as far as I am concerned, no death growls. Their lyrics do, however, have a darker tone, such as ‘In For The Kill’ and ‘Blood On Blood’. Mid performance singer Andy Alvarsson got his skull and blood out and was very generous with it as far as the audience were concerned. (I managed to avoid getting any on my camera, just getting one spot on my face easily removed.) There must be something primal about seeing a ritual like that as the energy of the audience palpably ratcheted up immediately afterwards. Once again they are preaching to the converted with the audience singing along. They did a great job of getting the crowd warmed up.
Next were The Cruel Intentions who are always good Rock ‘n’ Roll value, high energy and transfixing on stage. Singer Lizzy Devine really does look a little nuts/demonic sometimes due to his very expressive eyes, and it works well for a frontman of this kind of band. One of the best things about having a niche festival like this is that everyone in the audience is a fan of all of the bands, and once again the audience is very familiar with the material. It’s a mixture of older and newer tracks with recent songs like ‘Kerosene’ and ‘Sunrise Over Sunset’ sitting happily alongside older tracks like ‘Go F*ck Yourself’ and ‘Genie’s Got A Problem’. There was no Vains Of Jenna track which is testament to the fact that this band is maturing and has its own history and cachet now. I saw them three times on the Monsters of Rock Cruise recently and it’s a similar set, but I never get tired of seeing them. The only time Robin Snygg Nilsson, the drummer, comes close enough for me to photograph him is when they are taking their goodbye photo when he lies along the monitor.
Crazy Lixx are next and one of my favourite songs of the night ‘Hell Raising Women’ makes an early appearance, followed by another great track ‘Little Miss Dangerous’. This band has a lot of albums now and the songs are quite evenly paced across them, apart from the fact that they play more, three, from the latest excellent album ‘Thrill Of The Bite’, showing justifiable confidence in that release. This band has done really well in getting their songs on film soundtracks and computer games, especially horror ones, and singer Danny Rexon dons his usual hockey mask and knife shaped microphone for ‘XIII’. The band really do excel in eighties style melodic anthems and finish off with two more, ‘Blame It On Love’ and ‘Who Said Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Dead?’. They have a point. They also are very good at striking the poses and bringing the gloss of a stadium style band to proceedings.
Finally, we have Crashdiet and it is lovely to see Peter London back on bass. New singer John Elliot is firmly in the saddle now and does a good job of keeping the crowd going. It’s a set capitalising on the band’s heritage, with five tracks from ‘Rest In Sleaze’ and three from ‘Generation Wild’. ‘Queen Obscene/69 Shots’ make an early appearance. Before ‘Falling Rain’ Elliot jokes that it is always raining in the UK, but they were surprised to find that this time it was 25 degrees outside. He is right to notice that as a country we are warming up, probably with climate change, and the venue is a little warm tonight, especially by now! ‘Chemical’, ‘Straight Outta Hell’ and ‘Breakin’ the Chainz’ finish off the main set.
There are three cities in this series of Mayhem festivals. This one, London, is the first night and Crashdiet, The Cruel Intentions and Crazy Lixx are taking it in turns to headline and presumably to be the only band to get an encore. Crashdiet do indeed provide an encore with three extra songs ‘Change The World’, ‘It’s A Miracle’ and their quintessential song ‘Generation Wild’ topping out a really excellent event which seems to have flown by, with someone beside me saying “I would be ready for more”. That’s certainly the way to leave ‘em!
This was a really excellent festival and great to see it going so well from the off. I understand they are planning to have a similar event next year and I will definitely be up for it. Bring it on!
Gallery: All photos © Dawn Osborne (used with kind permission)
Review: Dawn Osborne
Photos: Dawn Osborne
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