Steelhouse Festival
- Rock Metal Machine
- Aug 15
- 15 min read
Artists: Steelhouse Festival
Venue: Ebbw Vale
Date: 25-27 July 2025
"A wonderfully run festival, with one main stage, meaning you don’t miss anything unless you want to. Fabulous sound, friendly but efficient staff, and a marquee that you can see everything from if it rains, make for a good experience."
It was the best weather at Steelhouse this year. Notorious for rain, we only saw a few light showers on the Sunday afternoon, with beautiful clear views of the surrounding hills being the order of the day for the rest of the time. Things are so much easier at a festival when the weather is good!
Friday
Asomvel kicked off the whole shebang with their fast-paced, Motörhead inspired Punky Metal. With confident assertions like “We are Asomvel and we’re going to kick your ass”, and tracks like ‘I Was Born To Rock ‘n’ Roll’, it’s a high octane start. While they said “Steelhouse, we’re going to take you to Hell!”, in fact the sound was perfect, and it was a one way journey to heaven for the punters for three whole days. Lemmy lookalike and soundalike Ralph Robinson declared, “This is the right way to start the weekend!” He was not wrong.
Marisa And The Moths with their more Indie sound and high Symphonic vocals are less my cup of tea. I’d say rather than having good songs, they have a particular sound and vibe, but she has a great voice and they performed well. Their guitarist held up his guitar with Ozzy’s name made out in tape on the back. He was not the last to do that over the weekend. Almost every band did a small tribute to Ozzy, even if just a few well placed riffs.
Dan Byrne did an acoustic solo set in the VIP tent and, because he has fantastic pipes, songs like ‘Hard To Breathe’ in an acoustic format just underlined how great his voice actually is. His solo songs are mainly about relationships, but he threw in a surprise refrain of “We don’t need no education” from Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’. This was the first of two such sets he would do this weekend, and he also in a separate session signed his new publishing contract in front of the VIPs celebrating with Jack Daniels!
Blaze Bayley was on good form as an entertaining Brummie for Wolfsbane’s set, getting total buy in from the crowd during ‘Money To Burn’ by saying the crowd just needed to visualise money and sing to get it. As a result he got a hearty singalong at this early juncture. The theatricality in his voice that got him the gig with Maiden, when Bruce Dickinson left for a while, is still unmistakably there in his voice. Having just re-recorded their 1989 ‘Live Fast, Die Fast’, it was a set that featured a fair few songs from that era such as ‘I Like It Hot’, ‘Manhunt’ and ‘Fell Out Of Heaven’. It got pretty emotional when they sang the Ozzy cover ‘Changes’ and people thrust everything they had in the air, from drinks to blow-up guitars. It’s mostly straight-ahead, old-school Metal, but with ‘Smoke And Red Light’ they even sounded a bit old London Soho Punky Glam!
I caught a little Marisa And The Moths acoustic and find I enjoyed it better without the slightly Indie electric guitar, making it a more traditionally straightforward listen.
Wednesday 13 were an entertaining sub-headliner with their schlock horror schtick. He’s another seasoned entertainer and got a belly laugh when he said “It’s a very unusual thing. We don’t normally play in the sunlight. Raise your middle finger and tell the sun to fuck off right now. Fuck off sun!” It is indeed ironic, as with the amount of usual rain, normally the sun is not a problem at Steelhouse. As I watch them I see the influences from Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson. As titles of songs such as ‘Look What The Bats Dragged In’ and ‘Too Fast For Blood’ betray, there is also influence from bands like Poison and Crüe, albeit that they have a darker edge to suit post-Nirvana taste. I even spot a little side to side mike stand action which is noticeably Axl-inspired. One guitar solo was even a bit Thin Lizzy sounding. Their material is, at heart, melodic Pop Rock over a very much harder baseline, and so is very palatable to a Classic Rock audience like Steelhouse. Songs like ‘In Misery’, ‘Good Day To Be A Bad Guy’ and ‘I Walked With A Zombie’ are undeniably catchy. Paying tribute to their frontman’s brother Joey Jordison, they do a couple of Murderdolls covers, ‘Summertime Suicide’ and ‘Nowhere’. They finished with ‘Bad Things’ and Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13’s ‘I Love To Say Fuck’. It was funny to see their large umbrella, sporting a huge middle finger and said expletive, in some kind of bastard love child of ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ while the sun was cracking the flags. Seriously entertaining.
The last band for Friday was The Wildhearts. They have a new whippersnapper of a drummer who apparently all the staff at the airport “thought must be the singer as he’s the pretty one,” as Ginger recounts. Very much like Wednesday 13, they offer super catchy songs with a heavier back end, great singalong material for a festival. They also have the somewhat mercurial Ginger as a frontman. He was fortunately in a great mood. ‘Suckerpunch’ as the first song made an impact, followed up by crowd favourite ‘I Wanna Go Where The People Go’. There were a few songs from the new album ‘Satanic Rites’, starting with single ‘Troubadour Moon’, probably the most commercial song on the album. During the performance Ginger told everyone not to rely on the system if you have mental health troubles, but to work on it yourself getting the right support network around you. The song that was up next, ‘Diagnosis’, is both a life affirming and uplifting song about this.
Stopping to talk to the crowd, Ginger explains he has a lurgy the whole band picked up in a studio, making him sound like Barry White. Whilst it’s not so obvious on some songs, it can be heard on others. ‘Vanilla Radio’ comes off well nevertheless. Rather than losing the crowd, Ginger instead connected with them through the experience, saying if he was “gonna go down, I’d rather go down here where I feel a lot of support and love.” In highly melodic ‘Eventually’ the croak could be heard, but the audience are enjoying the band and I didn’t hear anyone complain. It is less obvious on the heavier songs like new one ‘Failure Is The Mother Of Success’, and certainly one of their heaviest, ‘Chutzpah’. Since the photographers were not allowed in the pit when there were explosions, it was somewhat interesting to see Ginger put his guitar directly in the pyro, looking like a welder sending the sparks off in different directions. Said instrument apparently being no worse for the wear, they finished with crowd singalong ‘Geordie In Wonderland’, and my favourite Wildheart song ‘My Baby Is A Headfuck’. Things may have not gone to plan voice-wise tonight, but Ginger took the situation and made it more memorable, forging a bond through it with the crowd - a great show nevertheless.
Saturday.
Young and upcoming band Jayler were the first band on Saturday. With their Led Zep inspired riffs and delay echo on the voice, anyone who sees them could not fail to think of Robert Plant, especially when they see the singer James Bartholemew with his open necked shirt and shoulder length blonde curls. Although his voice is still a little helium-like through youth, they are indeed a promising young band on the cusp of recording an album. They will be joining a very good roster of artists on a management deal that has already taken them around Europe, with Europe! And despite his youth, Bartholomew is also a very good guitar player who can play behind his head. Every time I have seen them they have been popular, and today was no exception. Indeed, when they say it’s their last song, the crowd booed in a way they have not done for other bands. In tribute to Ozzy they did one verse of ‘War Pigs’, before morphing it into one of their own. Something tells me they will be back.
Next up are Muddibrooke who remind me a little bit of L7 mixed with Hole, with their slightly indie songs about rebellion. They even did a cover of the classic melodic song ‘Don’t Tell Me What To Do’. They worked the stage really well.
Scarlet Rebels are old hands at festivals, but for some reason I thought their performance was a bit more subdued than usual today. Guitarist Chris Jones seems to be doing less jumps etc. for the cameras. They specialise in commercial Rock and frolicking lyrical solos, and they were all still there, but perhaps without some of the excitement I have seen the band exhibit before. They are about to go on tour with The Dead Daisies, so I guess we will see if this is a temporary thing or not.
I catch a little Kris Barras acoustic in the VIP tent, where he does a few favourites like ‘Hail Mary’ and ‘My Parade’ up close and personal. He and the crowd were in good voice.
Hillbilly Vegas from Oklahoma are up next, with a line in somewhat PC-free Southern Rock, complete with Stetsons and buckskin. Their sound ranges from good time Boogie to very much like Kid Rock, when he rocks out instead of raps. I like a bit of rockier Kid Rock and it was pretty enjoyable. The discussion about men shining their belt buckles on women when dancing may have seemed a bit creepy to some. (Although I think it was probably said with humour. They are clearly creatures of the twentieth century. There’s still a lot of us about, and we were present in numbers more than a mere preponderance up this mountain.)
Jayler also did an acoustic set in the VIP tent, and Bartholomew’s voice when it was not at full pelt to out-shout electric guitars was even better, still piercing but a bit less helium-tinged. Each acoustic set was only a few songs, but when one of the audience says they wanted the band to play for five hours, he quickly quips “Have you got enough money for that?” In an acoustic format they sound even more Zeppelin-y and, although they say they don’t want any comparisons, that’s a shame, as probably career-long they are going to get them. They clearly don’t really mind, as they do a brilliant cover of ‘Whole Lotta Love’, with the audience singing along as if it were really Robert Plant before them.
Sophie Lloyd brought her dynamic incredible guitar playing and combined it with the vocals from Marisa (from Marisa And The Moths). They always dress to impress, and so, as well as sounding great, they looked amazing when they came down the ego ramp together. As usual Lloyd made it look easy.
Steelhouse has a signing tent and Lita Ford had a queue around the field when she was there. Smiling and friendly with the crowd, her management even brought a fantastic photo of the band for people to get signed. She was refreshingly real, despite her superstar status.
Kris Barras got his turn on the main stage next. He has a lot of fans in the audience which he acknowledged, and the crowd were singing along without being prompted. There are plenty of super long fast solos at the end of the ego ramp. Electric versions of ‘Hail Mary’ and ‘My Parade’ went down particularly well. He certainly is at home at Steelhouse, which he has played before. When he wants to go into the audience to get closer to them, and there is no step down, he simply says, “Good job I am a fuckin’ athlete” and jumps down to walk among them anyway (the only artist to do that this weekend that I saw). He has some great songs and a friendly easygoing manner on stage. He finished up posing, laying on his side at the end of the ego ramp hand behind his ear, the other on his hip like a Chippendale. Well, if you’ve got it flaunt it!
Lita Ford cut a stunning profile with her beautiful hair and striking leather Black Widow scarlet, all-in-one jump suit. Although she seemed to have some amp trouble in the first few songs, she soon overcame it and owned the ego ramp with her incredible guitar playing. She was super comfortable talking to the crowd, and with her longstanding band at her side came to conquer, and she did! During the show, maybe inspired by the fact that I was also wearing red and black, someone asked me if I was related to Lita. I’ll take that! Lita learned to live with objectification a long time ago and now takes it all as a laugh, shaking her ass at the audience. She’s still a fox! She also has a great voice, although I usually think she needs time to warm up. She’s already in gear with her lovely breathy technique by ‘Playin’ With Fire’, a few songs in. The band also played a few riffs from the self titled Black Sabbath song. It was truly electric when, after talking about being in Birmingham when Ozzy died, she did a more poignant than ever version of ‘Close My Eyes Forever’, which she wrote and recorded with him, at the end of the long stage with her stunning white, double-necked BC Rich she calls ‘The Twins’. Before leaving she commented that Ozzy would be proud and the crowd chanted “Ozzy, Ozzy” before changing to “Lita, Lita” as she left the stage. I think she made more than a few new friends today, as well as delighting the old ones.
W.A.S.P. headlined Saturday playing their first self-titled album in its entirety, before finishing with a few other classics. As ‘Animal’ was not on the original version of the first album, it was not on the set list. Due to this format ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’ and ‘L.O.V.E. Machine’ were the first songs, in a reversal of where they would usually appear, towards the end of the show. They made a great impact anyway, with everyone just drinking in the spectacle of Blackie Lawless, hands high on ‘Elvis’ his skeleton mike stand, like it was a motorcycle. He has kept the weight off and is looking and sounding great, wearing a spandex studded cat suit and his beautiful white buckskin Native American fringed boots. As he remarked, due to the setlist following the order of tracks on the first album, ‘On Your Knees’ which “has opened the W.A.S.P. show for forty years” in fact came mid set. For me, all these tracks from the first album just flew by, and so it was a shock when Lawless suddenly announced “Goodnight”.
Luckily they came back for a medley of other greatest hits, including ‘Inside The Electric Circus’ and ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’. They finished with the monster tracks ‘Wild Child’ and ‘Blind In Texas’ from ‘The Last Command’, perhaps my favourite W.A.S.P. tracks, so this setlist worked out really well for me. As Blackie said, there’s a fair chance they’ll never play the first album in its entirety again after this current tour, so we were witnessing Rock history. I look forward to doing it all again in September at the London show!
Sunday
Sunday morning was opened by Kit Trigg and it is testimony to his popularity that he pulled a good-sized audience, despite this probably being the potential graveyard slot. He has a soaring voice and can do a good Rock ‘n’ Roll rasp, tracks varying from Rock Boogie to more straightforward songs with rollicking solos. He has a good time vibe and so was a good choice to liven people up after a late Saturday night.
Tailgunner, like Iron Maiden on full throttle, are anything but gentle, ramping up the energy to eleven, with their machine gun heavy drum beats and totally widdly solos. There’s no light and shade, and absolutely no ballads. Rushing round the stage, guitars aloft, mouths open to scream lyrics, and maximum use of the ego ramp by all members, meant that, when they announced that they were “here to play Heavy Metal”, we believed them. They always work with impressive teamwork and seem like a happy ship. They were introduced by a young guy called Josh, a typical young headbanger wearing a baseball cap, a red and white Ozzy shirt and retro Lemmy style 1970s red nylon short shorts, fortunately with a large red bum bag strategically positioned over his jiggly bits. He proceeded to follow the band around videoing them, including all the way up the ego ramp with his cell phone becoming part of the show. He’s so very much a trope that he gets mentioned by the comperes afterwards in their subsequent band intros. Josh merch? It could be a thing!
The Treatment have some great tunes, and are also a band that put real energy into their performance. They are very aligned with the Steelhouse vibe, which has always included Heavy Blues, and they get a great reception. Perhaps strangely, just as they started singing about being “there when the thunder and lightning strikes”, it starts to rain, the first rain of the weekend. An incredible amount of the audience stayed out there in the drizzle in their ponchos, with encouragement from singer Tom Rampton who came out on the ego ramp to share their wet experience - “We’re British, we can cope with the rain”. He gets them all to jump with their fists in the air, and if that made people’s arms wet up their poncho sleeves, you would not have been able to tell. The brightly coloured plastic coats all jumping up was an incredible sight from the marquee where I and the others that are rain-shy were now hanging out. There has been so much rain in the past, the festival is simply set up for the rain, and everyone takes it in their stride when it happens.
Next up are probably my favourites for today, heavy Blues masters These Wicked Rivers, who also ironically start off with ‘Force Of Nature’ as the rain persists. They still have their usual visual set up with lampshades and vases containing flowers, and the stage is a sea of beards and western hats. Along with their great songs and musicianship, their guitarist Aaron Day still manages to kick as high as his hat and, despite the fact that the stage must be a bit wet, he never so much as swerves, never mind slips. They managed to sound a bit Led Zeppelin-y today at times, and also fitted in a little snippet of the self titled ‘Black Sabbath’ song as a tribute to Ozzy. Day has “God Bless Ozzy” written on the back of his guitar in black tape, which he turns up to be read by all. Finishing with ‘Don’t Pray For Me’, probably their most well-known song, they were sheer class as usual.
The Raven Age announced themselves as “the token Heavy Metal Band”, so they have clearly just arrived and missed Tailgunner. They do have a heavy back end, but to my mind their material is actually deceptively melodic, making them ideal for a Steelhouse audience. While singer Matt James is hiding his hair that makes him look like Joey Tempest under a baseball hat, his upside-down microphone bounce betrays that he might have been watching a little bit of Europe or Whitesnake in the past, and he certainly has the pipes. It is Matt Cox their bassist that delivers the death growls, the only ones of the weekend. By the end of the set the sun has come out, but with no break in protocol, they still ask the crowd to hold up their cell phone lights for ‘Grave Of The Fireflies’.
These Wicked Rivers are back for a few acoustic songs in the VIP area, including ‘Force Of Nature’ again. It was a different, more laid-back vibe, and so an entirely different experience to seeing them on the main stage.
Inglorious unfortunately also suffered a bit of rain at the start of their set, but they were undeterred and singer Nathan James’s force of personality and tremendous voice made them formidable, despite the elements. The rain soon went off, and by ‘Holy Water’, the vocals of which sounded really amazing, the weather had cleared up again, and stayed that way for pretty much the rest of the event. Nathan acknowledged a few things about the band during the set, including that they had gone away and had a changed line-up, but they were back (and indeed they still sounded great). He has been pegged as more than a handful at times, so it was interesting to hear the comment from him that “growing up in front of the Rock press has not been easy”. He also added that it was his birthday yesterday, and that all of us have more growing to do. Certainly he seemed pretty easy going today on the stage, and no harsh words marred the great vibes.
Wolfmother were next with their piercing vocals over heavy riffs. Maybe it was because I don’t know the material, but as a three piece I did not find them all that stimulating visually. They also tipped their hat to Black Sabbath, to which they no doubt do owe a lot of their sound, but not even that could move the feeling I had, that before their set ended, I was ready for Those Damn Crows.
This was the first time Those Damn Crows have headlined Steelhouse, and they were making the most of it with pyro, heart shaped confetti and fireworks, all of which must have cost a pretty penny. The photographers were not allowed in the pit until several songs in, when there was a brief interlude in the shooting flames. However, maybe they overdid it a bit, as the band were backlit and, with the stage full of dry ice, it was very hard to see them at times. They have never played in the dark at Steelhouse and they were making the most of it: their excitement was very much in evidence. It has indeed been a meteoric rise with the No. 1 album ‘God Shaped Hole’. They are local heroes, and the arena was full of devoted fans, as the t-shirts the merch people had been wearing for the whole weekend made clear. With their commercial songs, it was easy to get the audience (which contained a large proportion of Welsh) singing their hearts out. Despite their set being the last hurrah of a very eventful weekend, they kept the audience to the end, despite the dropping temperatures. ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Dead’, and they proved it with more than that one song!
A wonderfully run festival, with one main stage, meaning you don’t miss anything unless you want to. Fabulous sound, friendly but efficient staff, and a marquee that you can see everything from if it rains, make for a good experience. It’s small enough so you can always get a good view and get to meet artists in the signing tent, with a nice VIP section and exclusive acoustic performances in a more intimate setting between the main bands, but large enough to feel like a real gathering of Rockers. Surrounded by beautiful natural surroundings, this Festival has something special.
Review: Dawn Osborne
Photos: Dawn Osborne
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