Written and photographed by that pink girl: Hannah Price of Queen Riot Studios.

Stockport on a Saturday night is a strange place to exist as a female alternative photographer, one minute you’re getting jeered at by roadmen, the next you’re in a rock music church-cum-dive bar venue that sells Limp Bizkit beer and has a giant stained glass Ozzy Osbourne faux window adorning the red neon-lit walls.

Holy Diver- presumably named after that glorious Dio/Killswitch anthem ‘Holy Diver’ that every rocker can’t help but sing along to- it’s exactly the kind of place where generations blur, and everyone ends up in the pit, shoulder to shoulder, whether they meant to or not.

First up, Deadwax- Huddersfield’s best music offering- with an experimental sound that would welcome the roadman outside, then slap them round the chops.

Grime rap collides with dubstep, trance, heavy bass and the occasional guttural scream- the kind that leaves you wanting to start a fight with the government or become a full-time vigilante of nu-metal. Add them to your playlists now, you’re about to see a lot more of them.

Next, the room fills with green light, and I absolutely crap myself. How am I supposed to photograph this mesmerising front woman when everything is Elphaba green?

Dacara (and their lighting tech) provides a survival of the fittest race for the photographers in the room, you can look at this vocally talented goddess,but you’re not getting a clean shot of her without it being drenched in green.

The matriarch in me loves that for her. Vocally, impressive and with a classical metal meets experimental sound, I can see Dacara headlining large venues, turning them all green. I hope their merch is too.

I pop out for some cold air, as the venue is getting sweaty AF and without a barrier for photographers, I have been jigging around in the crowd and bouncing through the pit with a £4k camera, risking it all to get the perfect shot.

On my return, I am greeted by two men on stage who look like they might be related. Full ‘I have a beard therefore I scream’ energy.

I roll my bitchy little eyes and and immediately eat my own words as one of the lumberjack looking brothers launches into a rap. PROPER rap. Grimy. NASTY.

Ooh I quite like Pengshui.

I’m not exactly sure what Pengshui’s songs are about, but the sound is undeniable. Turns out, we can’t judge a book by its cover, or a bald man by their beard. This is Nu-Metal, we do things differently here.

MAIN EVENT TIME!!! BLACKGOLD ARE IN THE BUILDING!!!

Anytime you are at a gig, and sirens go off- you know shit’s about to go down. I don’t know how else to explain this, but when $pookz steps onto the stage, the whole room shifts, there’s a buzz, like there’s a celebrity in the building.

Ironically, for a band built on tearing down the elite parasitic class, that contradiction makes them all the more compelling.

Imagine for a moment, the world wasn’t completely fucked- i’m not entirely convinced BLACKGOLD would exist- or at least not like this. So maybe there’s a silver lining. BLACKGOLD are dragging Nu-Metal back properly. Old school. No apologies.

We still don’t really know who they are, and that’s probably the point. For some, that’s protection, for others, it’s freedom. You can say whatever you want, without a threat to your being, when no one knows who you are. Some people make faceless Instagram accounts and keyboard warrior away insults to women that won’t sleep with them. Others bring back 90’s reminiscent music and tell the government and creative industry to fuck off. I love them for that.

One thing I have to mention is that the choice of music before BLACKGOLD came on made me feel something uncomfortable. While the crowd sang along to Kanye West-Golddigger, I made a comment to my +1 that I refuse to sing along to a Nazi’s music-met with an eye roll from the woman behind me. It raised a question for me- how much of a dickhead does an artist have to be before we can no longer enjoy their music?

I hope they pirated the track.

The juxtaposition of the Kanye track being sang along to by a room of people and then the irony of them then bouncing around to the lyrics “Kanye’s gone a bit west” was not lost on me. Fuck Kanye.

Political rant aside, BLACKGOLD delivered everything you would want in a NU-Metal mini festival. The band even has a scratch DJ that threw together an absolutely sick mashup on their break- that was a golden nugget!

Camera down mid-set, I thoroughly enjoyed the gig and made the most of the chaos. A room filled with everyone singing and dancing together. We need more moments like this. Some gigs entertain you. Some remind you that people still need each other.