Tonight I headed down to the Academy in Bristol to see Architects bring their All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us tour to the venue, a tour where each and every show sold out many months in advanced, a tour which happens to be the most important, bravest and biggest tour of the architects 12 year career.
My usual 45minute journey into Bristol took the best part of 2hours tonight due to roadworks on the M32, heavy rain and gale force winds and the fact that every venue in the area tonight had show’s on meaning Trenchard Street car park was packed to the rafters and operating on a one in one out system so due to this by the time I entered the venue Stick To Your Guns had already played their set and Bury Tomorrow were minutes away from taking to the stage.
Bury Tomorrow are well known for their fast paced explosive live performances and tonight they lived up to that expectation and put on one hell of a show which was full of energy and had the crowd bouncing around from start to finish with the mosh pit kicking right off with people jumping around and crowd surfing and pretty much every opportunity.
Through their set Bury Tomorrow played many fan favourites such as ‘Man On Fire’, ‘Memories’, ‘Lionheart’, ‘Cemetery’, ‘An Honourable Reign’, ‘Last Light’, ‘301’ and set closer ‘Earthbound’ which is also the title of the band’s latest album which was released back in January, and the highlight for myself and many other fans was ‘Memories’ as the band completely smashed the song instrumentally and the dual clean meets unclean vocals from Daniel Winter-Bates and Jason Cameron were spot on.
In between songs Daniel Winter-Bates had a lot to say but the most important thing was when he had a massive rant about bands who charge their fans for VIP meet and greets, saying that these bands are exploiting their fans and if it wasn’t for the fans then they wouldn’t be a band, they wouldn’t be able tour create and release music, they wouldn’t be able to tour and for that reason bands should not take advantage of their fans and then he went on to say that he would be at the merch table minutes after the set and he hopes a lot of people come down for a chat and to get things signed.
On the back of tonight’s show its fair to say that Bury Tomorrow have come a long way since their formation back in 2006 and I will be doing my best to seeing the band on their headline tour in April 2017.
As soon as Bury Tomorrow left the stage a big banner was erected and draped in front of the stage displaying the words “All Out Gods Have Abandoned Us” which happens to be the name of the tour and also the latest Architects album.
After a short wait the lights of the venue dimmed and the big banner dropped to reveal the Architects opening up with ‘Nihilist’ and one of the most insane yet impressive lighting shows I have seen at a gig in a long time with fast paced strobe lighting and co2 canons going off every now again leaving the band pretty much smoked out yet everyone in attendance seriously impressed with everything that was happening in front of them visually and musically.
Architects played a massive portion of their ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’ album tonight but they also played some old favourites such as ‘These Colours Don’t Run’, ‘Dead Man Talking’, ‘Early Grave’, ‘Broken Cross’, ‘Grave Digger’, ‘Colony Collapse’ and the Sea Shepard related ‘The Devil Is Near’ which was introduced by a massive speech from front man Sam Carter who happens to be the UK ambassador for Sea Sheppard and spoke about the importance of Wales, Dolphins and pretty much every sea creature and how we need to do everything in our power to protect them as we need them more than they need us.
It has been a few years since I last saw the Architects on the live circuit and it is safe to say that a long has changed since then as the band are bigger and more confident than ever, they are playing much bigger venues and to sold out crowds and they have unleashed one of the most visually impressive shows I have ever seen and the further you are stood back in the venue the more impressive it seemed to be, also front man Sam Carter has matured a lot and talks a lot of influential sense in-between songs, telling the crowd how his dad ran to a cash machine to give a homeless man £10 when he was younger and how that has always stuck with him and how if we see a homeless person in the streets we should give them a couple of quid especially this time of the year as its colder and they are more lonely etc.
The show came to an end with ‘Naysayer’ and moments later the band returned for a two song encore which consisted of ‘A Match Made In Heaven ‘ and ‘Gone With The Wind’ and just before the band went into ‘Gone With The Wind’ Sam Carter asked the crowd to conduct a one minute silence for their guitarist and best friend Tom Searle who sadly passed away earlier in the year to cancer, the crowd conducted the one minute silence perfectly and started chanting “Tom” over and over again after as SamCarter talked about how passionate Tom had always been about Architects and how most of the tour and the stage show was planned by him and how this has been the hardest tour the band have ever done and how Tom would of wanted them to carry on with the tour as he worked so hard for it and how he is and always will be a part of every Architects show as his legacy will never die , the speech was very emotional and you could tell from Sam’s voice that himself and the whole band have been overwhelmed by the fans support over the past few months.
Overall tonight was a show I will never forget, Bury Tomorrow were on top form and show the potential to go far in their musical career, whilst The Architects put on one of the best shows of their career and proved to everyone why they are one of the hottest bands in the UK right now.
Bury Tomorrow 4.5/5
Architects 5/5
Review By Trigger |
