Heavy Metal Weekend declared in Britain

The British have declared this weekend a Heavy Metal weekend.  It is not often the stiff British Broadcasting Corporation supports Heavy Metal, but when they do, they get into it 100% and they do it in style.  Years ago they had a Heavy Metal Christmas (called Heavy Metal Heaven) with Slayer and Metallica now it is the turn of the UK bands that influenced them.

BBC Four (a British digital TV station) are having loads of British Heavy Metal programs this week.  It kicked off last night (Thurs) with Iron Maiden's latest movie Flight 666.  This was the documentary that they shot last year as they flew around the world in a Jet flown by lead singer Bruce Dickinson.  It continues tonight with 60 minutes of concert footage from the Somewhere Back in Time Tour with three of the best metal guitarists and the best bassist live.

The flagship program has got be Heavy Metal Britannia. This traces the origins of British Heavy Metal from the Industrial cities and Working Men's clubs with Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.  Through the 70's with Judas Priest up to the 80's and New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) with the likes of Iron Maiden.  You will find that the British side of metal is a lot darker and less glossy than the American stories.  They British rockers are very proud of their Metal bands and support them strongly (but quietly) by going to all the concerts they can.

There is also another program, Heavy Metal Britannia at the BBC.  This is BBC live archive footage of bands like, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.  The BBC have had all the big bands play for them at some stage and there will be some rare and great footage shown.

Black Sabbath in the 1970's

It finishes off with two episodes of Rock Family Trees.  Friday night is Black Sabbath and Sunday night is Deep Purple.  These two bands influenced everyone from Miden to Metallica and Korn.  Especially Tony Iommi's guitar playing which inspired legions to learn to play rock guitar.  The two bands have had members float between them like David Coverdale, DIO, Ian Gillian, Whitesnake, Rainbow, Ozzy and so on.  Sure to be informative and good rock music to watch.

The bulk of the programs are on Friday night the 5th March and are repeated over the weekend.  All are shown again on Sunday the 7th.

Click the link below to find out more from the BBC Four website.
BBC Four Heavy Metal Britannia

If you miss that see if you can see them on the BBC iPlayer, it keeps all programs shown for a month or so.  You can find it also on the BBC website above.

Hope you get checking it and enjoy it.
Cheers,
Steve.