 Due
to booking tickets through the official Billy
Talent website and them being slack in sending
tickets out, when we got to the Academy tonight
we had to join the box office collection queue,
the queue was massive due to the fact that the
show wasn’t sold out tonight with people
also queuing to buy tickets on the door, after
a good twenty minutes of queuing, we finally got
in, but then I had to retreat out of the venue
again and go down to the stage side door to pick
up my photopass, by the time I finally got into
the venue Canterbury were playing there last song
so I never got a true feel of their live stage
show.
I had a quick walk around the venue, checked
out the merchandise and had a quick beer before
making my way to the front of the photo pit to
wait for the Cancer Bats to take to the stage,
minutes later the lights dimmed and the Cancer
bats took to the stage, front man Liam walked
on to the stage all slow and casual and as soon
as the first guitar riff was knocked out he was
running all over the place like a mad man possessed,
maybe he still had a bit of that spooky Halloween
sprit as after all Halloween was only a night
ago, from the photo pit area the Cancer Bats put
on a massive energetic show that was full of aggression
and massive noise, but when I came out of the
photo pit and headed towards the back area of
the venue to watch the rest of their set, I had
a sense of feeling that I was the only person
in the Academy tonight who wanted to see the Cancer
Bats as the crowd was stale just standing still
and most probably thinking what the hell is this
music, as to be fair the only thing the Cancer
Bats have in common with Billy Talent is that
they both hail from Canada, but musical wise both
bands are very different, the Cancer Bats did
seem a bit odd creating the chunky riff-tastic
sounds they create on the massive stage at the
Academy and it gave me the sense of feeling that
no matter how hard the Cancer Bats work there
aren’t going to get much bigger than what
they are and it’s not from a fault of their
own as they are one of the most hardworking biggest
touring bands who spend more time in England than
they do back home, but their music just doesn’t
cut with everyone.
 The Cancer Bats did play a massive range of songs
starting with ‘Hail Destroyer’ and
finishing with ‘Lucifer’s Rocking
Chair’, with many big songs in the middle
such as ‘Pneumonia Hawk’, ‘Bastard’s
Waltz’, ‘Deathsmarch’ and even
a brand new song which leaves you with hope that
a new Cancer Bats record is on the way, overall
a good set but sadly it was the wrong time and
place for the Cancer Bats tonight.
It took a good thirty minutes to prepare the
stage for Billy Talent but as soon as the lights
went off in the venue and the curtain fell off
revelling a big backdrop saying Billy Talent everyone
knew that the time they had been waiting for had
finally come, the band took straight to the stage
and kicked off with ‘The Devil Can’t
Testify’ and just hearing the vocals from
front man Ben Kowalewicz got the crowd in a mad
frenzy with people moshing like crazy and many
crowd surfers having to be carried over the barrier
by the heavily working security.
The whole of the Billy Talent set seemed like
a greatest hits and that is because each and every
Billy Talent song is so good, they are a band
who manage to excite you no matter what they do,
in total they played 16 songs and they ranged
from ‘Devil In A Midnight Mass’, ‘Rusted
From The Rain’, ‘Devil On My Shoulder’,
‘Surrender’, ‘The Ex’,
‘Line And sinker’, and each and every
one of these tracks had the same positive reaction
from the crowd.
 I did feel that the set was slightly scripted
as when Helen went and watched them a few days
before in Birmingham, Ben made an announcement
about Green Day playing down the road, and he
did exactly the same tonight but luckily the Brixton
crowd was more positive than the Birmingham and
cheered the announcement.
The biggest highlight to the set was the en-core,
Billy Talent left their two best song’s
right until the end and launched into a frenzy
of ‘Fallen Leaves’ followed by ‘Red
Flag’, the crowd erupted for both songs,
with the majority of the people around me doing
their best air guitar impressions rocking out
for the last couple of minutes of the show.
Overall Billy Talent put on an amazing show,
a show that I will never forget and a show that
sit’s nicely within the top ten gigs that
I have ever been to and that is some achievement
as I have been to a fair few shows, I can’t
wait for Billy Talent to come back to these shores
and I really hope Green Day invite them over to
support them on their massive Wembley Stadiums
shows that’s announced for Summer 2010,
only time will tell.
Cancer Bats – 3/5
Billy Talent – 5/5
Review By Trigger |
