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Black Country Communion at High Voltage day two

Pictures of Black Country Communion on the second day of  the High Voltage rock festival in London.

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Pictures of Black Country Communion on the second day of the High Voltage rock festival in London.

There are also pictures of Heaven's Basement, St Jude, Michael Schenker and Thunder.

Click on the image to the right for the gig photo gallery

Black Country Communion and Judas Priest flew the flag for the Midlands at the second High Voltage rock festival in London at the weekend.

Black Country Communion,- featuring Cannock-born singer and bassist Glenn Hughes and Dudley-born drummer Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin legend John - had the unenviable task of following the ultimate goodtime band Thunder, reunited for a one-off appearance.

But BCC showed during their hour-long set last night that they have the chops and the sounds to make a huge impact on the High Voltage crowd.

Taking in tracks from their two albums, including a superb Save Me and Song Of Yesterday, they wrapped things up with a rearranged version of guitarist Joe Bonamassa's The Ballad Of John Henry and then a cataclysmic Burn from Hughes' days with Deep Purple.

Judas Priest closed Saturday night on the main stage with a set identical to the one they had played at Wolverhampton Civic Hall two nights earlier, but no less impressive for that. New guitarist Richie Faulkner was clearly in his element playing up to the festival crowd, while Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, Ian Hill and Scott Travis churned out hit after metal hit.

Elsewhere, Dream Theater closed last night's performance with a two-hour set of dense, polyrythmic prog metal, introducing new drummer Mike Mangini to British audiences - a day after they had warmed up for the festival with a performance at the Civic.

Spread across three stages, other performances at High Voltage came from Slash, Thin Lizzy, Queensryche, Jethro Tull, Black Spiders, Mostly Autumn, Barclay James Harvest and The Enid, among others.

There was also the bizarre sight of Top Gear presenter James May introducing virtually unknown Birmingham-based band Love Fungus in an unannounced slot early on Sunday to a sparse and puzzled crowd.

Music photography: Ian Harvey/RocktasticPix

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