Vampires Rock proves the highlight of The Rock And Bike Fest

The festival calendar is full of overpriced mammoth corporate festivals which are designed to try and milk the punters for as much money as possible as quickly as possible, I'm sure we can all think of certain festivals which charge you £180 for a ticket then if you want to camp charge you £20 extra.

Heaven forbid if you want to set up early, because that will be an extra £10. Admittedly these mammoth festivals do have well established name bands but as any true festival punter would know, it's not just about the bands it's about the atmosphere and feel of the festival.

Thankfully this is where The Rock And Bike Festival stands head and shoulders above all of the other festivals.

The Rock and Bike Festival is held at Draycott House in Derbyshire. We thought it would be an interesting one to attend as I'm not a biker (although I do have an admiration of bikes) so it would be interesting to see how a punter in a car would be treated.

Upon arrival motor bikes were waved straight through without being charged for parking where as car drivers were stopped and charged for parking. However as a driver paying a mere £5 for parking was a blessing in comparison to some of the bigger festivals that have made me part with £20 to park my car. More importantly the security staff and parking attendants were very friendly and laid back guiding us into the car park.

The car park was only a few metres away from the campsite, and then the arena was just a few more metres away, you could easily walk from the car park to the campsite within seconds and from the campsite into the main arena within mere seconds. In comparison to other mammoth rock music festivals this was heaven!

As to be expected with a young festival, it is fairly small in comparison to the well established festivals, but that is what makes this festival so special. You enter the main arena and there is the main stage, which is the back of a lorry opened up. Then there is the smaller stage which is in a moderately sized white tent.

There were tattoo stalls and various other stalls as well as fair rides and a little activity part with crazy golf, inflatable sumo wrestling and other activities to keep children entertained.

There was ample room for punters to walk around without feeling like they had been herded into a tight space, and if you wanted to you even had room to lie down without being cramped.

This festival is slightly different to most other festivals has it tries to get some of the best cover bands that are currently playing the live circuit. This year's line-up boasts tribute acts to AC/DC, Guns N Roses, Motorhead, The Who, T-Rex, Jimi Hendrix, The Killers, and The Ramones.

The indoor stage was buzzing when Faithealer took to the stage and belted out their numerous cover versions of legendary rock bands such as Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne. Faithealer weren't trying to look like the people they were covering, they just let the music speak for itself and judging by the audience participation it seemed to work.

A Motorhead cover band called Motorkill were next up, and musically I couldn't really fault them, the vocalist tried to look like Lemmy and attempted to sound like him when he was talking to the crowd, which at times sounded strange.

We then took a gentle stroll to the main outdoor stage to catch a tribute band to the Who called Quadrophonia, who certainly managed to sound like the Who and bring some of the magic that The Who usually bring to a live show. A pleasant enough band to watch live but it just didn't seem to have that spark to keep the punters in the crowd captivated.

Thankfully the headliners T.Rex The Music of Marc & Mickey, managed to kick-start life back into the crowd and get the crowd swaying and singing along top timeless 70's glam rock anthems such as 'Metal Guru' and all of the other hits that made Marc Bolan a legend.

The vocalist of T.Rex, sounded exactly like Marc Bolan used to sound in his glory years. As I glanced around the audience it looked like everybody had been having a ball and was more than happy with the choice of headliner for the Friday night.

Saturday at the rock and bike festival is packed full of competitions and other little acts as well as bands. There was the usual tattoo competition for males and females, as well as the motorbike competition.

Upon entering the arena some of the motorbikes that were entering the completion were set up in a circle for the punters to have a look at and see the excruciating detail and paintwork on some of these bikes. If it was left to me they would all win a prize.

There were Morris Dancing, Shimmy dancing, pole dancing as well as the bands. In fact there was so much going on it was near impossible to do everything. So we went and caught a few of the bands on the indoor stage. Art Of Deception kicked things off with a blistering set, which set the crowd up nicely for the rest of the day.

Verbal Warning were one of the many highlights over the weekend, as they are able to write their own material and look set to gain a lot more exposure in the next few months.

The Ramonas are an all female tribute band to the Ramones. To give them credit where credit is due they did the songs justice. The Ramonas are one of band that can cut it live. They managed to keep the audience captivated with their energetic non-stop jumping around on stage.

ZZ Hot opened the main stage and ploughed through all of the crowd pleasers that have made ZZ top so famous. Yes before you ask the band members were sporting the beards that the real ZZ top became well known for.

Are You Experienced are a tribute act paying homage to the legendary Jimi Hendrix, and they managed to replicate Jimi's image and sound perfectly. They even dragged a few ladies onto the stage for the performance of 'Foxy Lady'.

Next up were the main headliners Vampires Rock, now the lead vocalist Steve Steinman was either very brave or very stupid to accept this slot, and to be honest I'm still not too sure which category to put him in. Stupid because how could a show with soft rock songs and a couple of ballads win over a crowd of hardcore bikers? Brave because he had the sheer nerve and determination to run the risk of having the infamous bottles of piss thrown at him and his band. So the stage was set, with a huge skull with bat wings dominating the centre of the stage and two gigantic cages either side of the stage big enough to fit a person into.

The intro music started, which was the theme from the WWE wrestler The Undertaker. Ten out of ten for using the most appropriate piece of music for a show about the undead.

For those of you who still haven't had the pleasure of seeing Vampires Rock the story is very straight forward, Baron Von Rockula is looking for a new bride, and holds auditions for a new female vocalist (almost like X-factor).

Pandora turns up at the audition and has very little idea of what rock music is. The show then follows her transformation from geeky Cliff Richard fan to a bonafide rock queen able to belt out anthems such as 'Holding Out For a Hero' and 'Poison'.

During the opening songs 'Welcome to The Jungle' the cages came to life with scantily clad female vampire dancers. (What more could a male ask for?) Toyah Wilcox plays the vampire queen and without a doubt she has still got a voice which can give some of the best vocalists around today a good run for their money.

The show is stringed together by numerous tongue in cheek scenes in which the dialogue leads into the next track. However when Steve Steinman and the backing band plough into some of the biggest rock anthems, it is easy to see that they take the music side of the show very seriously and deliver the goods like their life depends on it.

Some of the songs that they slipped into this show were 'Killer Queen', 'Jump' (Van Halens version), 'White Wedding', 'Since You've Been Gone', 'Schools Out' and 'Bat Out Of Hell'.

The audience of hardcore bikers seemed to lap up every song. Steve and his female vocalist Emily Clark seemed to have the crowd eating out of their hands. There was a rather amusing point during the show when Steve and Emily do a duet of 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' and all you could see was a sea of arms gently waving in the air whilst the bikers with their tattoos and leather jackets were singing along. Steve just looked at the audience laughing and called them a "bunch of pansies", all in good humour.

Towards the end of the show Steve does a cover version of 'Bat Out Of Hell' and to be honest there is no better way to end a headlining slot at a rock music festival.

My only criticism of this show is that having a vocalist has gifted as Toyah Wilcox, maybe they should use her a bit more in the show has she seemed to be sidelined so that Emily Clark could belt out most of the rock anthems.

Despite that minor criticism, the crowd loved every second of this show and felt like they had definitely got their money’s worth. And that is all that matters.

This was definitely the highlight of the festival.

Best of all Steve and his band managed to do the whole show without any bottles of warm yellow liquid flying over them. Mission accomplished.

So a great end to a brilliant value for money, friendly, pleasant, enjoyable festival. You will struggle to find a more friendly festival. This is how all festivals should be! Will I be going again next year? - hell yeah!!

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