11/3/2007 More hard rock cover bands in Camden...

Subject	More hard rock cover bands in Camden...
PostedDate	3/11/2007
	Having no work on Monday, a night out on Sunday didn't seem a bad idea - not that it being a bad idea often stops me anyway! Bar Monsta was my first stop for Rockworkz. As I arrived a guy with an amazing voice was singing some Deep Purple songs - his vocals on 'Child In Time' were jaw dropping! 'Highway Star' was pretty damn good too. The band were excellent - a cut above your average hard rock cover band. Another singer took over for the last few songs and we got some G'N'R and Led Zepellin classics - it making a nice change to hear some of the less commonly heard Zep stuff as well as a cracking 'Communication Breakdown'. It was only the third time I've seen this band at Bar Monsta but it was the liveliest. Good to see some familiar faces in there too.  Well worth it - especially for free! After Rockworkz finished my original plan was to head down the road to the World's End to catch the last of Dead Seed's set of similar material, but the band at Bar Monsta finished later than expected and there wasn't much time left to head down the road - especially as I'd just bought another bottle of Newcastle Brown. A few people thought it would be a good idea to head up Chalk Farm Road to the Weatherspoons pub instead where yet another hard rock cover band were playing - you really are spoilt for choice in Camden on a Sunday night at the moment!   It seemed that this other pub was open til midnight, whereas the entertainment at the World's End finished at 10.30 - so that's where we went. On arrival we found there was a snag - it was a fiver to get in.  This didn't seen so great when you could see two other bands playing virtually the same songs for free only a few minutes walk away. Still, in we went. The band were Metalworkz - the band that used to play every Sunday at the Caernavon Castle and were at Dingwalls last Sunday. They are pretty good, but not as good as Rockworkz in the vocal department - until the amazing guy who I'd seen singing down the road earlier got up to sing a few songs here as well! Although the venue was much larger than Bar Monsta, it made a pretty poor live music venue. The pint of Directors (normally one of my favourite beers) I had was pretty foul as well.  Weatheredprunes pubs are more known for their cheap prices than the dubious quality of their beer... Still, there was a good crowd in there with more familiar faces so apart from the beer things were good. When the band finished they announced that the bar would still be open for another 20 minutes, but when I tried to get a drink only five minutes later it was shut! I wasn't pleased.  It's details like that that influence my decisions about returning to places in the future...

Bar Monsta is now 'Camden Rock' - a terrible venue. The Wetherspoons pub mentioned is now The Monarch (which is what the nearby Barfly used to be called) and last time I went in there had given up stocking real ales.