Margarita Witch Cult/Loyds Trip/Requiem Blues/Druidess @ The Lubber Fiend, Newcastle upon Tyne, March 28, 2026
Mersey beat and Yorkshire grit
Rushonrock didn’t get the early start memo and miss Newcastle sax doom crew Druidess; a shame, as since they supported Rosalie Cunningham two years ago, the band have been on the rise.
But they’ve clearly pulled in a few dozen acolytes tonight, paving the way for Liverpool’s Requiem Blues to kick out the jams and bring the grooves.
According to their bio, they’re “blending the spirit and sound of Budgie with the street level gloom of early Pentagram”. According to us, they’re simply one of the best psyched-up, hard rocking blues trios you’ll see, if this set is anything to go by.
Maybe guitarist Christopher Fillis signed a contract with Satan on a Birkenhead crossroads, as his fingers seem to be possessed.
His fretwork flies free.
Close up, it’s an absolute joy to watch…
…as is the rock n’ roll whirlwind of Loyds Trip, a Sheffield band who’ve taken up Orange Goblin’s baton and run with it down Ecclesall Road.
Singer Danny Brown announced that they came out of a “portal to hell in the back of working man’s club”. And we can only guess what the Tetley-quaffing regulars would have made of this bunch of leather-clad outlaws, who sound like a collision of garage rock, raw NWOBHM and stoner doom. Think of MC5 high on Iommian tritones, or The Allman Brothers on a sesh with Motörhead, and you are (kind of) close.
Someone shouts ‘open up the pit’ as Serpent On The Mount uncoils.
Heavy Inducer? Exactly what it says on the tin, mate.
This was a trip no one wanted to come back from.
The witch cult grows…
Last July, Margarita Witch Cult made it into the livestream of Black Sabbath’s Back To The Beginning extravaganza. OK, so the Brummie trio didn’t actually share the stage with Pantera, Metallica et al. But the doomsters were seen by more than five million people, as part of the event’s celebration of Midlands talent.
Perhaps, then, it’s no surprise this show was a sell-out.
It was the kind of exposure most underground bands would slay for… and just part of the enormous legacy left by Ozzy’s last hurrah.
That said, North Easterners who witnessed MWC hit 2024’s Byker Grave Festival will surely have been making a beeline for this gig regardless – especially if they’d heard ‘25’s sophomore album, Strung Out In Hell.
Why? Because Scream Bloody Murder is a proto-doom anthem or the ages… and sounds world conquering in The Lubber Fiend’s tight confines.
And because Jim Thing, George Casual and Screamin’ Scott Vincent know that Sabbath sold their souls for rock n’ roll, not dour, glacial metal.
They act accordingly.
The Witchfinder Comes with swagger and sass.
Death Lurks At Every Turn turns up the heat.
Sweat pours.
Beers are swilled.
It feels like a Saturday night in Newcastle…
MWC may have been once labelled ‘party doom’ (their first record even featured a cover of Billy Idol’s White Wedding) but on nights like this, it’s apt.
That said, when the boys go heavy, they go heavy.
Who Put Bella In The Wych Elm is close to the chasm-dwelling spawn of Electric Wizard, building into a hypnotic crescendo that up close, is almost overwhelming.
Like Green Lung four years ago, Margarita Witch Cult are in the ascendancy.
This was their first UK headline tour.
And by Christ, they made it count.
Photos used courtesy of Stefan Rosic, Conundrum Images.