Whilst I'm not trying to say they are the best of British, we have had no mention of a few bands I grew up with (late 80s / early 90s) :-

Little Angels
Dogs D’amour
Quireboys
Manic Street Preachers (they may have lost their rock routes for a while but their last album was more rocky)
Thunder

Someone else mentioned Tygers. They reformed a few years ago, but i think its only the guitarist from the heyday. There's and album out as well and they are playing gigs now and again.
As for Whitesnake, i'm with you on that. I saw M3 a few years ago (Moody, Marsden and Murray with some mates) and they were great, enjoyed them more than Coverdale's current era hired hands.
Don't think anyone else mentioned Motorhead or Bad Co.

Anybody remember The Dick Smith Band?

I've recently been listening to the Dio era Black Sabbath albums; Heaven & Hell, and Mob Rules. I think they are both really good!

What about SKIN? They were tremendous live. WOOT!

and i love them

yes us brits have produced some amazing hard rock/heavy metal bands my favourites are iron maiden ,black sabbath ufo nazareth and deep purple

When it comes to this sort of thing, I'd say we were truly the best in the world at the time, NWOBHM etc.

Love that young German whizz kid. Go to see him perform whenever he is in Scotland.

How about the later Sweet, who could rock well? Sweet FA and Action are awesome tracks and Richie Blackmore was a big fan.

I saw Praying Mantis back in the early 90's, at the London Astoria. They were the support act for someone (can't remember who) and had Dennis Stratton on guitar.

I'm a big fan of hard rock and the British do indeed do it best but........ Thin Lizzy are an Irish band.

Both brilliant bands. Tyla has just released a rerecording of Graveyard of Empty Bottles (not as good as the original which I place as quite possibly my favourite album/EP of all time) and the Quireboys played Download (so did Tyla). Let's not forget the Wildhearts too (Ginger's new album started well last week making it to 9 in the mid week chart before slipping down to 27 yesterday ).

Anyone else used to be into the Babysitters or Last of the Teenage Idols. Great stuff.

As for my first exposure to British Rock/Metal it was Fist (neighbour back in 83 asked me I liked songs about torture and played me 'Name Rank and Serial Number') and Venom.

Rainbow were awesome even if the singers were American. Nothing can match Dio belting out Stargazer.

I was (still am) a big fan of theirs and love the Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Rainbow Rising and Down To Earth Albums.

Germany have produced a few good'uns as well - Scorpions, Accept (& U.D.O.), Doro Pesch (& Warlock), Running Wild, Bonfire, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Pink Cream 69, Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Axel Rudi Pell to name a few are all among my favorites.

Germany is a big market for hard rock. I quite like UFO.

Think alot of hard rock, 70's trad - metal / heavy rock (inc. heavy psychedelic or prog rock) seems to be over represented by the Classic Rock radio format these days.There's quite alot of stuff that is deemed acceptable to be played on Classic Rock radio that I like but there's also vast amount's of music that would never get played on Classic Rock radio that I love also.Personally speaking, perhaps, Classic Rock (with radio format in mind) is only a good introduction to music that can be found that has been broadly played by artist's mostly termed hard or heavy rocker's.
I broadly support Classic Rock radio - although hardly ever listen to it now.Mostly due to the fact I am over familiar with alot of it now perhaps.For younger fans drawn to classic rock radio, I suggest you dig a bit deeper into this area though as you'll be pleasently surprised by the variation & quality of some of the music found.The Dad Rock dismisser's I'm aiming this at mainly , although perhaps I'm guilty of dismissing alot of the more generic hard rock as well

They are still going strong after a bit of a lull in the 90's. their last few albums have been a return to form, and 2 sucessful UK tours last year.

They are headlining Wacken next month,

as was AC/DC
Guns n Roses
Kiss

all on me ipod

I was 20 in 1972. Back then Zep, Sabbath, purple, any band like that was called 'Heavy Metal'. However, metal had really bad press back then, so some managers made bands describe themselves as 'Hard rock'.

To me, classic heavy metal was is and also will be the big three..Zeppelin, Purple and Sabbath. Sabbath are probably the most représentative of what would be called Heavy Metal today, although Purple have claims for thrash/speed metal. Zeppelin today seem regarded ás hard rock , but they were a big influence on metal and set the 'template' as it were.
Its highly subjective, but to sum up I'd say Zep were the catalyst for metal(there were other influences of course, but Zep seemed to kick start the genre), with Purple and Sabbath defining the genre.
Early Queen should probably be mentioned in Despatches, they lightened up considerably later on, but their first album especially was very heavy.

An original copy of their first album, Vincebus Eruptum, goes for a small fortune these days.

I've seen virtually all of the bands mentioned here and have many fond memories of most of them!

Maiden will always be up there for me, along with most of the "usual suspects"!!

As for the new generation, these have impressed me over the last few years...

The Treatment - Nothing To Lose But Our Minds
Exit Ten - Resume Ignore
BLACK SPIDERS - Just Like A Woman
Godsized - Walking Away
Furyon - Disappear Again

Black Sabbath, ACDC, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin to name a few... all the classics really!

Worth checking out this site if your Led Zep fanatic, and a bit of collector:
http://www.thefloodgallery.com/colle...e-levee-breaks

I remember seeing them on top of the pops after their first three singles, and thought they were the worst band I'd ever seen. Then a mate and me saw they were playing locally one night, and we went along for a laugh, but were completely amazed, because their set was full of great rock music, including about three Who covers. Couldn't believe it.

They then went onto make better singles, although from the start the B sides were great. The albums really had some rock quality too. The trouble for them was they got the glitter image, and were stuck between that, and the rock they really preferred.

I saw Budgie about six times back then too, and they were superb. Judas Priest were support four of those times, and I thought they were rubbish!