Breed 77 hit the stage to what would appear
to be a decent crowd considering the size of the
room but for all the people they appear to be
very quiet this evening. Most bands would find
this a problem but these guys try to have a laugh
with the situation which gets many laughs but
the situation still stays the same. You cannot
flaw this front man’s confidence and charisma
because if it wasn’t for him this set would
have been very awkward and uncomfortable; the
highlights for me were their cover of “Poison”
by the great Alice Cooper, their cover of “Zombies”
is something not to be underrated as it’s
a huge anthem and finally their own song “Insects”
which I’ve loved for years, I can safely
say that I’ve never seen a band deal with
such a poor crowd reaction better than this, their
front man has a fantastic sense of humour that
has salvaged the other members moral and kept
everyone in high spirits, it didn’t even
knock their performing abilities either.
Fozzy hit the stage and the energy levels explode
as the chanting begins; “FOZZY, FOZZY, FOZZY”,
and that continues viciously through the entire
night after every single song. They use AC/DC’s
song “Whadda Ya Do For Money Honey”
as their intro tape as the members take point
on the stage before kicking into “Spider
In My Mouth” as Mr Chris Jericho emerges
who this evening has some of the best vocals I’ve
heard the man produce. Following through into
their latest single “Sandpaper” the
charisma is off the charts, getting down with
the crowd, bounding around the stage, swinging
his arms around while lead guitarist Rich Ward
providing some very harsh metal screams provoking
the more aggressive edge to the set. Their set
flew by before you’d even known it had started
because it was just so good that nothing was ever
going to be enough, always wanted more as Jericho
dives all over the crowd takes a camera and takes
his own photos on the very last song using his
years of experience in entertaining crowds to
push a rock show to new boundaries.
SOiL tonight is a very big deal to me as it’s
the first time I will get to see them perform
with original vocalist Ryan McCombs and I’ll
tell you what they did not disappoint me, McCombs
is charismatic and energetic, his humour is not
wasted either the way he interacts with the crowd
to get them involved with his jokes, getting down
on the barrier with the front row and even during
their set closer, the infamous “Halo”
he dragged his microphone and stand offstage and
made his way to the dead centre of the crowd to
sing the entire song with us noting that “you
guys are the nicest crowd I’ve ever walked
into” well it was either that or the diciest,
I think the second well it was Birmingham after
all. Opening with one of the favourites “Breaking
Me Down” which was a perfect opener and
then spreading through their set with some favourites
like “Unreal” and “Redefine”,
I think the band is stronger than they’ve
ever been before with a positive outlook on life
and an uplifting live show, bring on the album
next year!
Breed 77 4/5
Fozzy 4.5/5
SOiL 4.5/5
Review By James Webb
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