StormBreakers Final Dreadnought Rock, Bathgate 28 August 2021

Since the inaugural 2016 launch of this fantastic festival, it has always been the organisers duty to be offering a platform for up ‘n coming bands to perform. In year 2 of WinterStorm the idea to openly invite acts to apply for a chance to ‘Battle it out’ for a slot at the festival, spawning the birth of the aptly named StormBreakers. 

Move forward to 2021 and the format has ambitiously changed, with applications clogging the inbox of the organisers in their droves, it was decided to have regional heats across the UK all vying for a spot in the final. 

Trillians in Newcastle, Dreadnought Rocks in Bathgate, WaterBear in Brighton and Fuel Rock Club in Cardiff where the chosen venues for the heats to take place, with the final coming north of the border again to Bathgate. 

Whether it was playing live to an audience or an online vote as was the case with Brighton & Cardiff, our 2021 finalists were chosen to descend upon Bathgate, for that shot at glory and the chance to ‘Be Beside, the Seaside’ in Troon this November.  

Huge Congrats to the Finalists: Bad Actress, Fallen Mafia, White Raven Down & Black Lakes. 

Special guests: The Brink 

A couple of days before the final, a drop kick from the Covid size 10’s to the StormBreakers ‘Dangly bits’ was to be dispensed with the announcement that Black Lakes would be unable to attend due to one of the band members testing positive. All at Rockfiend are sending our best wishes for speedy recovery. 

As they say ‘The Show Must Go On’ and four become three.   

Kicking off the Final and to set the bar for the evening are Bad Actress, hailing from the Highlands of Scotland, you can't help but notice an image akin to those glory 80’s Hair & Glam metal days, this young 5 piece take no time in having my old right foot tapping along with a Riff laden set of Killer thumpers with the likes of opener ‘Hellbound’ the gritty sleaze’esq filled ‘Low Down n’ Dirty’ and latest single ‘Red Hot’, a killer Rhythm Backline had me thinking ‘AC/DC’, only to have a wry smile not 5 minutes later when during ‘Actin’ like an Animal’ a snippet of ‘Long Way to the Top’ was offered, the bar was definitely set for the rest of the evening. 

Next up from Newcastle and winners of the heat held at Trillions we have Fallen Mafia, with the Black War paint adorned in true ready for battle style, the metal fusion commenced, opening with ‘Awaken’ combing a hard n’ heavy punch of Alt. Rock meets Goth, ‘Burn’ continues that heavy pace, throw in some fine armoury with a twin guitar assault on ‘Breathe’ there are a few darker themes during the set notably with ‘Asylum’ a slower paced opening that you just knew those huge riffs would kick in and drive the song home, set closer and in true fashion of let's leave the best to last ’Nymph’ a hard-hitting lyric on this but what a monster of a tune. 

Last but certainly not least of the finalists, all the way from Essex and winners of the Brighton heat White Raven Down, these guys went big with the sound from the off, with taped intro opener ‘Mind Reader’ unleashed this solid hard rock outfit, never wavering from the intensity, tracks like ‘Broken Door’ and ‘Not Alone’ bringing a Grunge fuelled element to the set, a little nod to Sabbaths ‘Iron Man’ during my fav of the set, the infectious ‘Silence’, before long the lads were winding up with ‘Salvation’ thus rounding off a no-nonsense, balls to the wall set weighted heavily with those mammoth riffs which powered from start to finish. 

With ongoing deliberating by the judges, Dreadnought Rocks was treated to a special guest headline set from so called ‘Veterans’ of WinterStorm, ‘The Brink’, having previously graced the Troon stage in both 2018 & 2019, although new music is on the cards the set would be filled with tracks from the Debut album ‘Nowhere to Run’ bringing out the tried and tested album big guns for this cracking 40-minute set, packed full of crowd pleasers from the opener ‘Break The Chains’ right the way through to the sing-a-long anthemic ‘Are You with Me’ add in a side order of addictive foot stompers such as ‘Never Again’ and ‘One Night Only’ all coming together in a well-polished butt kicking show. 

Onto the business end of the evening, with 2 slots up for grabs a mainstage opener and session stage slot, this would mean one of the three would miss out... or would it, transpires that we have ourselves a tie, how do you resolve this... A lead singer game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ in the middle of the hall was my first thought but no.... 

With the powers that be making executive decisions, turns out ‘Everyone’s a Winner’. With ‘Bad Actress’ taking the Main Stage Opener, ‘White Raven Down’ and ‘Fallen Mafia’ have both been invited to play on the Sessions Stage in November.

Whilst this was a competition, there was never that feel to it, instead the main ingredient of the night I felt was ‘Unity’, this probably sounds a tad corny but for everyone there you will know what I mean, to all the bands, the fans and staff alike, probably just the relief of getting to see live music again but it did have something else and it made perfect sense to have all 3 bands be welcomed to Troon in November. 

MG.