My own band KAINE has been on a run of really great gigs lately, the latest of which was our fantastic show opening up for the mighty DEEP MACHINE with a very special set from DEALER too! Both of these bands were from the legendary NWOBHM period, and both had the sense of live experience and classic songwriting to show for it. We knew it was going to be a good night and it was really cool that the promoter, Dean Archer, wanted us to open the show!

The crowd was fantastic from the get go, plenty of people showing us relative nobodies some great support throughout our 45 minute set. I feel it was one of most well played shows recently as well, thanks in part to the great sound on and off stage as well as the great crowd we had.
 

Dealer opened up with a few tracks they are well known for before heading into the special part of their set. As advertised, they played their debut album "First Strike" in entirety! This was really something cool to see, and it was really nice to properly delve into an album like this. I can imagine their devout followers who had come all the way from Cirencester for this show were very happy as well! The band was really tight throughout with great feel and groove too!
 

Deep Machine followed that stunning show with their own fantastic set, featuring for the first time their new vocalist Andy Mawbey. As he stated during the show, he'd actually auditioned for the band back in the 80s, and he finally got his chance to show his stuff in the band at The Rock Den! He really proved himself on the night, with a really powerful performance throughout the set, and his stage presence as a whole was really great, helped by his towering height of course. The band got through lots of great tunes and performed a new one that will be on their new album soon! Overall it was a really great set, with lots of cool solos, riffs and a great rhythm section backing up Andy's fantastic vocal performance.
 

This was a great night, it was great to see people out supporting a real venue like The Rock Den and here's hoping it keeps getting bigger. A show to remember, for sure!