Fans Life

...Live to have fun with CB!

Brixton Academy London 25/11/2006

The first half of the year flied away and we had a lot of chances to follow up and down the Europe our loved Crucified Barbara, but the second one promised to be terribly empty... the girls, after a long series of summer festivals they planned a short stop, then a tour in Australia (a bit out of our range, actually...) and finally one month in the United Kingdom supporting Motörhead. Then in August released the “operation London". Could we miss the opportunity of their english tour with Motörhead? Which best occasion of a very famous place like the Brixton Academy, situated in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? maybe some suspect of terrorism in summer could stop us? Surely not, and then here we are to organize a good week-end in the capital city of England, after we find out some adhesions and booked on-line the tickets for the gig. Start on Friday early morning and return on Sunday evening, with the good gig of the Brixton in the middle.After a Friday as tourists, the Saturday we plunge into the very crowded markets of Camden Town waiting for the right hour, that arrives right in the peak hour of the public transports! After some effort we jump into the underground direction Brixton, that is right in the other part of the town, just after we met Ewan, old acquintance of the italian tour last January, that lives right here and, of course, he can't miss the gig (and that already on Friday night told us about some of the previous dates of the tour he followed all around the isle!)

It's half past five and finally we land at Brixton, where we start to see some shirts and jackets with Motörhead logo, we're arrived! It started to rain at intermittance... we're exactly inn London! The usual picture in front of the entrance of the Brixton, till now only saw in photo, then we withdraw the long-awaited tickets at the box office, we take a look and there's already some people, but not so much, in queue on the side of the entrance. We provide us of some beers at the market that is on the street parallel of the one of the Academy and, just when the rain give us a moment of truce, we take a walk around the building. We find Ewan, he says us that the one we have in front of us is the artists entrance, so we wait some time the possible passage of the CB. The number of the people in the queue is growing so, to avoid to miss the CB that will play soon, at twenty past six we join the queue too

We try to finish the beer and to waste some time, yet a lot, that we have to wait till the entry and all of a sudden, I turn myself backwards, by chance, and I see Mia that walks towards me... I cannot believe my eyes! We greet each others, "How long!!" and then she say she has three passes for the aftershow party, for us, that, having spoke with local people and frequent visitors of this place that told us of how it was armoured, we didn't expected nothing... It could be enough, but she ask "how much you are?" and being in eight, she told us that she will take a look to what she can do for the others. however we thanks her, that’s already too much, and she come back inside. It takes just a short time and, new surprise, here she is again outside with the others five passes, fantastic! It passes again some time, and then I see Nicki walking in the street with a couple of friends: I leave the queue for a while and I go to greet her, even if I cannot stop talking too long, to not lose my place.

We make acquintance with some Roman guys that play in a band called "Hammer" and then with a couple of guys that say they wrote me... but unfortunately at the moment I cannot stop, we are in front of the doors and we slowly start to enter,  we get over the security controls, astonishment at our entrance in the arena, and here we are in the front row together with some german fans of Motörhead!! Just a few minutes, the place little by little is animating and then, on time and very soon, the light turns off and the Crucified make their apparition one by one on the stage starting as usual with "Play Me Hard" and the audience heat up... all of a sudden, between two songs, Ida takes the microphone and say "Next song is dedicated to our italian fans that are here for us..." and there rise our small boom, thanks CB! Their set is quite short but very good, the girls plays with confidence and do it very well, they are in very good form and just towards the end they present us the new, already heard during the spring tour, "Burn to be evil" and then we are near the end when arrives on the stage with surprise (at least our) no less than Phil Campbell for the last song that is the classic "Killed By Death", and then the audience, already full of energy during the rest of the gig, get exited, but the time is already over after about forty minutes.

The comments at the end are very good, I saw them a lot of times but I can say that here, with these perfect sounds and this stage, their fantastic form, made a very great gig! We stay here in front when jump on stage the Clutch, an american band, that maybe is very famous here, but is maybe a little bit out of place this evening... A very long wait and here appear the shape of Lemmy and all the Motörhead on the back of the stage! The throng becomes like hell, the place is sold out, hard to stay there in the middle so that little by little I'll finish to follow the gig up on the bleachers! We set out towards the exit slowly to meet our friends that remained near to the barriers, we ask to an officer where we can go with the bracelet/pass that we get from Mia and she shows us an exit that we find out immediately. We try to join our friends, but the security is clearing all and invite us to go out, so we take refuge and we go up to the bar of the after-show! We take a look around a bit and we meet Klara, that say hello to us.

We now realize in a little how we are lucky to be already here inside, while four thousand people are outside.  We take a beer and here comes out Mia, that stay with us a lot, we talk calmly of a lot of things and she introduce us some german Motörhead superfas, then I hear someone call me on the back and here we have Nicki, so I come to her talking for some more than previously outside. At last is the time of  Ida that come out from the stairs that comes fron the backstage and she stops to greet us too.

Another little to wait and also Phil Campbell appears (he seat with Nicki and her friends) and then Mikkey Dee...

We drink some more beers and the place tends to empty... till someone kindly ask us to go out.

We stop shortly in front of the entrance of the backstage and Mia come out from it, she stop a little with us, but the security officer invite us to go out also from here so we say  goodbye to Mia and we wait a bit on the street.

Is quite cold, someone is very hungry, but we wait a bit, round the corner the are the tour bus and the crews is loading all the stuffs of the stage but we're waiting for the 61 years old singer of the Motörhead. There's a strange movement of cars, in fact in one moment arrives a Mercedes and after a while Lemmy comes down, with a girl, and give only a couple of autographs, and is followed in a few minutes by Mikkey Dee and Phil Campbell. Now is the turn of the Crucified that come down one by one, so we say goodbye to all, a see you soon and then we can go to eat something in a fast food still open even if it’ s later than two o’clock and to search the night bus to go towards our hotel (that is not so easy, we wait for one, but the driver say us that’ s not for our destination, so at the second attempt we find out the correct one!).

At the end, what to say... It has been a beautiful experience, at London was the forth time I came but in this city there's always something to do, the gig has been very good and thanks to the pass we had the possibility to spend some time with "our" CB, after a long time sice we met.

A big praise to the security, the kindest persons I ever seen, I don't know if in England all are like these, but our experience has been very good..

Now... even if we still have in our eyes this beautiful evening, we think a little about the future: the CB will have to stop them for a while to work on the new stuffs, then the next appointment is now to a time to be arranged....Mia say us that we're welcome to the gig of the 16th of December in Stockholm, but unfurtunately, not enough time to organize and too much money to spend! it'll be for the next time.

Report by Lorenzo Benelli&Roberto Migliari

Photo By Cristina Ferrari