The inaugural Hellfire Festival, held at the Islington Academy in February 2009, enjoyed sell out crowds and boasted a line-up including Exodus, Overkill, Firewind, Breed 77, Sabbat and Warrior Soul to name but a few. With a reputation for featuring both breaking bands and established acts, Hellfire is at the forefront of the Rock and Metal scene.

And now it's coming to Birmingham (in conjunction with Music Live)... and it's getting even BIGGER!

Music Live - the UK's favourite music-making event - celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2009.  Designed to both educate and inspire visitors in their musical endeavours (however serious), Music Live annually showcases the world's biggest guitar, amplification, drum and music production brands from Fender and Gibson to Roland and Yamaha. Seminar content regularly covers topics as diverse as making a career in the music industry and recording the perfect demo.

The joining of forces means visitors will be able to enjoy the massive Music Live equipment exhibition and Live Stage during the day, with Hellfire taking over the live area each evening to create an anticipated audience of over 30,000 attendees. A total of four stages will play host to around 100 live performances throughout the weekend; joint tickets for both events will be available at discounted rates.  And with previous Music Live stars-in-attendance including Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Kerry King (Slayer), Matt Tuck (Bullet For My Valentine), Duff McKagan (Velvet Revolver) and Rick Parfitt (Status Quo), visitors to this year's 'crossover' event will be treated to more exciting live shows and big-name meet-and-greet sessions than ever.

Music Live show manager Jason Hunt said, "We're delighted to welcome Hellfire on board in 2009. With metal the traditional material for 10th anniversary gifts, Hellfire is the perfect partner for our birthday celebrations."  Hellfire's Rob Ferguson said, "We bring a complementary package to Music Live making this our most exciting project to date. Expect a killer line-up and a festival which positively encourages all interested and likeminded parties to make contact and come on board."

The list of band's announced for Hellfire II is becoming quite staggering.  Headlining the three nights will be Saxon, CKY and Fields of the Nephilim - and each of the nights on the main stage will feature a compatible list of bands to go with the headliners.  Some of the support acts on the main stage will include: Anvil, My Dying Bride, Cancer Bats, Benediction, Anathema, Gama Bomb... the list goes on and on!   (see below for more details).   And as if that weren't enough - there's the additional stages!  Check out the full list (as it stands) on the Hellfire website, and prepare to be amazed!

Some more information about a few of the bands playing (as if you need it!):

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Saxon

Saxon began with a lineup of Peter "Biff" Byford on vocals, Paul Quinn and Graham Oliver on guitars, Steve "Dobby" Dawson on bass and drummer Pete "Frank" Gill. Early in their career the band changed their name from Son of a Bitch to Saxon, and gained support slots on tour with more established bands such as Motörhead.

In 1979 the band signed to the Carrere record label and released their eponymous debut album. In 1980 follow-up album Wheels of Steel (UK no 5) spawned two hit singles: the title track, and the crowd favourite "747 (Strangers in the Night)". The Strong Arm of the Law album (UK no 11), considered by fans to be one of their best recordings, was released later that same year, and chart success continued with singles from their next release, Denim and Leather (1981 UK no 9). The title track to that album is seen as an anthem of the early 1980s metal movement. Later legal issues with Carrere negated most if not all of the financial gains seen during their early success.

A relentless series of headlining tours around the UK capitalised on this success and a sold out tour of Europe with support act Ozzy Osbourne highlighted Saxon's immense ability on the road and was set in stone with the live release The Eagle Has Landed (1982 UK no 5). In America they were supported by, amongst others, Metallica and they finished the U.S. tour with four sold out shows in Los Angeles.

As the NWOBHM movement began to fade 1983's Power & the Glory saw Saxon establish themselves as one of the major European metal acts together with Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. The "Power and Glory Tour" of 1983 was an arena tour that began in Europe and was a huge success. The US leg of the tour with support act Accept proved successful and Saxon found themselves on the verge of becoming a major act in the US as the album, in its first week of release, sold more than 15,000 copies in Los Angeles alone.

Saxon's The Inner Sanctum album, released in Europe on March 5, 2007, and North America on April 3, was seen by many critics as their best work in years. In 2007, they started a world tour in support of The Inner Sanctum which saw them have only 15 nights off from 60 dates.

Saxon released a new studio album entitled "Into the Labyrinth" on 12 January 2009.

Anvil

Anvil's story is one which is now well known by metallers and non-metallers alike - thanks to the recent documentary 'Anvil: The Story of Anvil'.

The roots of Anvil began in April 1973 in Toronto, when high school friends Steve "Lips" Kudlow and Robb Reiner began playing music together.  By 1978, the first full line-up of the band included Steve "Lips" Kudlow (lead vocals, lead guitar), Reiner (drums), Dave Allison (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Ian Dickson (bass).

In 1981, the band released an independent album called Hard 'N Heavy. Shortly after they were signed by Attic Records, changed their name to Anvil and the independent album was released by Attic as their debut album. Following its release, Lemmy Kilmister asked Lips to play guitar for Motörhead to replace "Fast" Eddie Clarke, but Lips declined.  By 1983, Aerosmith manager David Krebs and assistant Paul O'Neill signed Anvil and convinced Attic to release the band from their contract so the band could sign with a major label.  However after initial interest, Krebs eventually stopped returning phone calls and did not get the band a major label recording contract, but eventually released the band from the managing contract allowing the band to find their own record deal in mid-1986.

Free to pursue a recording contract, they signed with American label Metal Blade Records in 1987. They released three records with Metal Blade, starting with Strength Of Steel, which was the group's most commercially successful record in the United States, peaking at #191 on the Billboard 200.  Anvil were then picked up by Maximum Records, an independent Canadian label that was formed by Helix's manager-at-the-time William Seip. From 1996 they were signed by Hypnotic Records in Canada and Massacre Records in Germany.  In 2001, the band recorded Plenty of Power and continued touring in which Kudlow remarked "We'll play gigs sometimes where there's no one there".

In 2006, the band recorded with Chris Tsangarides, who previously produced their acclaimed 1982 album Metal on Metal. The CD was self-released as This is Thirteen in 2007, and was available exclusively from the band's official website.  Following the success of the Anvil documentary, VH1 Classic Records will re-release the album on CD and vinyl on September 15, 2009 with a newly recorded song, "Thumb Hang," and the double vinyl LP will contain re-recorded versions of Anvil classics "Metal on Metal" and "666."

In 2009, Bantam Press released the book Anvil: The Story of Anvil authored by Kudlow and Reiner with a foreword by Slash.  On March 28, 2009 Kudlow and Reiner were the featured guests on VH1 Classic's That Metal Show.

The band is currently working on a new album titled Juggernaut of Justice.

CKY

CKY (originally known as Camp Kill Yourself and later as Camp; sometimes stylized as cKy or ckY ) is an American alternative metal band that formed in West Chester, Pennsylvania in 1998. Currently comprising vocalist and guitarist Deron Miller, guitarist and vocalist Chad I. Ginsburg, drummer Jess Margera and bassist Matt Deis, the band has released four studio albums and is closely linked with the CKY Crew and the television series Jackass, both of which feature Bam Margera (brother of drummer Jess).

The band shares its name with the CKY video series, a series of skate and prank videos (and its crew) created by Bam Margera. CKY's music has been featured in all four CKY videos and various other related projects including Jackass, Jackass: The Movie, Viva La Bam, Haggard, Bam's Unholy Union, Viva la Bands and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Their songs have also featured in the video games Burnout Revenge, Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home, Jackass: The Game and the soundtrack to Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

On December 7, 2006, it was announced that the band had signed a worldwide deal with Roadrunner Records. Deron has officially stated that the band is working on the new album, which they will self-produce, and that a lot of material has been recorded. They are said to be sorting through hours of material and picking the 'best' to be put on the album, something Miller says they were never able to do with the others. Jess mentioned that with the last CKY record, it was a "total guitar record, but with this one, it will sound like a CKY record". "The Boardwalk Body" is about a childhood trip Deron took with his family to Wildwood, New Jersey, where shortly after his arrival, a body was found under the boardwalk; "Hellions on Parade" (which the band performed live on October 30 and 31, 2008 at the Hellview III shows) is the third song in the Hellview trilogy, being preceded by "96 Quite Bitter Beings" and "Escape from Hellview". However, if one wishes to include the oiL song "Thanks for the Ride", it is the fourth Hellview song.

Their new album Carver City was released on May 19, 2009.

Fields of the Nephilim

Simple words cannot encapsulate the huge influence Fields of the Nephilim have had on the rock scene over the last twenty odd years.  They were one of the few so-called 'goth' bands to be embraced by the mainstream music press and metallers alike, and their constant evolution (under the control of leading light, and enigma, Carl McCoy) has been a joy to behold.

Fifteen years after Elizium (an album that was for many years considered to be the Fields' might swan-song), Carl McCoy released Mourning Sun, his fourth full-length studio album under the name Fields of the Nephilim. The album was released in Europe on November 28, 2005, with the North American release in April 2006. The album may be seen as a synthesis of the melodic goth rock of Elizium and the aggressive death metal of Zoon. It had seven original songs, with a cover version of "In the Year 2525" – from Zager & Evans – included as a bonus track on the first 5000 copies.

In 2006, some European venues announced a tour was to take place, although this was never officially confirmed by the band. Although a large number of tickets were sold for various dates, none of the gigs occurred. The band took pains to emphasize that they had at no time confirmed these dates with promoters or venues, and reiterated to fans that nobody should buy tickets for such events until they had heard official announcements through the band's website that such live performances were to go ahead.

Mentioned in many interviews following the album Mourning Sun, at least since he started working on the album, McCoy has been working with "ghost musicians" – the musicians whose role supposedly is to co-write and help finish off studio recordings, or to appear at live shows. There has been no lineup or official disclosure of the names of band members so far, apart from John "Capachino" Carter. McCoy has admitted to having applied preprogrammed drums on some of the tracks, stressing at the same time that most of the drum parts "were created by a real human being".

On May 24, 2007, McCoy introduced a live lineup of Fields of the Nephilim, including the so called "ghost musicians" for the first time by performing a gig at the London Astoria. The lineup included Gizz Butt, a former live guitarist for The Prodigy. The night marked the first live performance of several Mourning Sun tracks, as well as the band's first UK show since the Festival of Fire appearances in 1991. According to the band's website, the event was filmed by video director Richard Stanley (McCoy also has a small cameo role in Stanley's sci-fi horror film 'Hardware').

On 15 March 2008 they played in Warsaw, in Klub Stodola and on 21 and 22 March 2008 they performed in Athens, in Gagarin 205. On 11 May 2008, the band headlined the Wave Gotik Treffen festival in Leipzig, playing in the Agra Hall. A DVD entitled Live In Düsseldorf 1991 was released on June 27, 2008. On July 12 and 13, band played two consecutive shows at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London. The well-received shows marked their sole UK appearances for the year, and were again filmed by The Nephilim associate Richard Stanley. In August 2008, Fields of the Nephilim headlined at the M'era Luna Festival in Hildesheim, Germany, performing in front of 23,000 people.

It was announced officially in April 2009 that John Carter had left the band by mutal agreement. No replacement has yet been officially named, even though the new bass player (allegedly named Snake) did play with the band at "Amphi Festival" - The Orkus Open Air on Saturday 18 July 2009 - which Fields of the Nephilim headlined.

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We'll be adding more information about the Hellfire II Festival and the acts appearing there (including some exclusive interviews!) to the Midlands Rocks site over the next couple of weeks...  Stay tuned!