Darkest Hour kick things off this evening
with some old school American metalcore. Over
the vast number of years of enthusiastic gig attendance
the band’s name has cropped up repeatedly,
in spite of this I’ve actually never got
around to actually checking them out. Finally
they’ve crossed my path due to my punctual
arrival time and they completely blew me away
because they absolutely nailed it. Thick chunky
riffs and intricate fills and licks worked over
the top of a heavy bass line and bouncy beat,
that is right up my street and even the fact that
this early on the arena is pretty damn empty doesn’t
stifle their efforts. It makes me feel quite stupid
for not letting them into my life much sooner
than this; being a support act you never normally
get this kind of atmosphere not to mention with
this kind of low attendance, to take all of this
in stride and produce this amount of intensity
is a great accomplishment for any band. Should
all the bands match or surpass this performance,
we’ve got a night set to be one for the
ages.
Devildriver raised absolute freaking mayhem, before
they even made it to the stage the circle pit
was growing. From the intro track to “End
of the Line” right through to closer “Clouds
over California”, there is no resting period
just fully fledged brutality. I’ve admitted
to having fears of Devildriver’s live show
becoming a bit dull after I last saw them in Wolverhampton
with 36 Crazyfists but their presence on the tour
and the fact that they’ve managed to perform
at a Grade A standard tonight just shows how much
of a force they are in the metal genre. It’s
only a support slot so there isn't too many songs
just 8 of their finest, I’m sure I’m
not the only person who found themselves begging
for more than we got with the quality of their
back catalogue. The only way to characterise the
relationship between Dez Fafara and this audience
is like a drill sergeant and a band of troops,
he says it and they do it, whether its spiralling
out of control to “Not All Who Wander Are
Lost” or screaming the lyrics to “You
Make Me Sick” every person has given 110%,
both band and crowd. This marks the finest Devildriver
set I’ve witnessed to this day and the bar
for the night has been raised, hard to see how
anyone’s going to top that.
Bring Me The Horizon from the word go have been
placed on the wrong bill, I have some respect
for them for embarking on it in full knowledge
of the abuse they are about to receive but that’s
where it ends. I am a journalist, I have nothing
against BMTH or their fans but its not for me,
never has been never will be, that being said
there is absolutely no reason their fans should
enjoy themselves any less nor should people be
discouraged from expressing their opinions, for
me it made a very interesting atmosphere but I
feel for some fans it may’ve been a bit
of an awkward set. Whilst not being a fan I am
familiar with their music and I feel that the
vocals were far from perfect, Jona’s were
pretty spot on but Oli’s were not, which
made the pairs harmonies a quite far off. I may
receive abuse from my peers but I must say that
their ability to take and deal with abuse is quite
astonishing really especially considering the
sheer volume of it they were receiving, even if
Mr Sykes may have shown a bit of unprofessional
behaviour towards a couple of audience members
which is a bit unfair as they did pay 30 odd quid
to be here but at the same time they were being
arseholes. Oli was quite involved with the crowd
mind you getting them to sing along and spending
a fair amount of time leaning over the barrier,
at the end of the day however the arrogance or
the front man and the musical quality means they
aren’t getting a great rating off me in
comparison to everything else I’ve seen
tonight.
Machine Head or should I say Machine Fucking Head
as it has been chanted more times than any other
expression from history, managed to top what I
thought would be the untopable in Devildriver’s
performance. Nothing short of perfection here
as they give every possible aspect a show could
include; emotional expression, headbanging, fist
pumping, sing alongs, aggressive moshing, hilarious
antics and over all tremendous amounts of pain.
If I had to pick a song to which I felt was the
most brutal, it would definitely have been “Bulldozer”,
when that hit I was simultaneously punched in
the face and kicked in the balls, literally, one
of the most aggressive mosh pits I have ever been
a part of. Now if you asked me what the best song
of the night was, for me personally I would pick
“Imperium” because it’s my favourite
and judging by the reaction it received I’m
not alone. Before playing “Darkness Within”,
Rob Flynn shows a side that at a live show he’s
never shown before, he explains how his emotions
about life and touring affects him on a personal
level and talks about dark topics involving his
life, this definitely helps build a bridge with
us lot standing out here. Nothing more needs to
be said, absolutely nothing, I’ve left it
at perfection and explained everything included;
See Machine Head, buy their albums and enjoy corrupting
your offspring with it.
Darkest Hour – 4/5
Devildriver - 4.5/5
BMTH – 2/5
Machine Head – 5/5
Review By James Webb
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