Live Review: Diamond Head, Milton Keynes Bowl, 5th June, 1993

The appearance of DIAMOND HEAD was treated with a certain mixture of respect and curiosity by the still slumbering crowd, many of whom, if not exactly clued up on their music, were aware of their history and their influence on METALLICA, thanks to enthusiastic babble mouth, Lars Ulrich.

Singer Sean Harris made his appearance in a "Grim Reaper" outfit, and the band promptly kick started into Am I Evil, highlighting that slightly dated jackhammer British Metal sound from the early 80s, although as their set progressed a more streamlined melodic shape came to the fore, a la To The Devil His Due, as well as clear ZEPPELIN influences peppering the songs. Nifty guitar work, too. But on a bill like this (with Metallica, MEGADETH, and THE ALMIGHTY) they seemed a bit out of place and out of time.

Mark Liddell
Riff Raff
August, 1993

Revenge...?

Riff Raff was a legendary rock magazine based in London in the late 1980s and 1990s. Edited by the ultimate music biz insider, Mark Crampton, and employing such talents as Mark Blake, Jerry Ewing, Mike Harris, Paul Smith, Chris Collingwood, Alan McCrorie, Simon Robinson, Lyn Guy, Anna Marx, Nick Douglas, Marion Garden, Peter "Grunty" Grant, Joe "The Crow" Mackett, Billy "The Kluck" Kulke, and, lastest and mostest, the incredible Liddell Brothers, Mark (a.k.a. "El Perro") and Colin (a.k.a. "Der Fly"). Unfortunately, Riff Raff was just too R n' R for its own good. A genuine working class rock mag, written, edited, and translated into 16 European languages in a drug-N-Jack-D-fuelled haze, often on the back of motorbikes, with spell checking by our staff of attentive rock bimbos (chosen purely for their blondeness and big knockers), it soon fell behind more trainspotterly, nerdish, and politically correct publications like Q, Kerrang, Mojo, Metal Hammer, and Horse & Hound. This website is an archive and kind of shrine dedicated to the writing of its greatest writers, some of whom, luckily for the Rock Kosmos, still continue to write about music. This is the REVENGE of Riff Raff...Rock on!