With decorations now safely stashed away in the attic, bottles of plonk in the recycling bin and with everyone now slumped back behind their desks, Christmas is but a distant memory. January desperately needed a boost to kick 2017 into gear.
As the first major tour to hit Newcastle this year this package of three of the most exciting modern Metal acts around looked just the ticket to banish those post-Christmas blues once and for all.
First up at the unearthly hour of 6:15pm was Swedish melodic Death Metallers, In Flames hot on the heels of their recent nomination for a Swedish Grammi for their current album Battles.
Battles, their 12th album in a 27 year career sees the band striding confidently into new territory and while the likes of The End may raise an eyebrow or two with their older fans as they leave their Death Metal roots even further behind, it’s quite clear that a whole new generation of fans are jumping aboard judging from the reaction of steadily growing crowd.
Vocalist Anders Friden may well let out the odd Death grunt of old here and there but on the likes of the magnificent Paralyzed, he showed a wholly different side to his approach at times touching the smooth Gothic tones of Pete Murphy of Bauhaus.
The dual guitars of Niclas Engelin and former drummer turned guitarist Bjorn Gelotte scythed through the likes of The Truth and Take This Life while new boy bassist Haken Skoger in only his third show played like he’d been in the band since the year dot.
45 minutes was way too short for In Flames who were just getting into their stride before it was all over. Well they say that the aim is to leave the fans begging for more and In Flames in their short and sweet set did just that.
There are just some songs that never, ever should be covered as the originals are just perfection. Sitting On The Dock of the Bay springs to mind and who can forget the mauling Unchained Melody received at the hands of both Gareth Gates and Robson and Jerome? Another song near the top of that “Don’t Touch” list is Sound of Silence yet when Disturbed’s David Draiman sang that very song the whole Arena hung on to every emotion charged note. Accompanied by a string quartet, acoustic guitars and orchestral percussion Draiman gave a master class in how to cover a classic and making it your own while retaining the very essence of what made it great in the first place. This performance touched the soul. To call it stunning just does not do it justice.
Disturbed first broke through during the woeful Nu Metal era at the turn of the Millennium being one of the genuine bright spots to emerge from those times and five consecutive US No.1 albums since then is testimony to a band who managed to break free from those constraints and combine a bone crushingly heavy duty approach with a commerciality that has resonated with the Metal crowd and beyond.
Draiman has an imposing persona and his unique, edgy vocals and trademark “bark” come to the fore on the deep groove of Indestructible and Stupify as Dan Donegan’s slow, grinding riff twisted and turned.
Big respect is due to the headliners, Avenged Sevenfold as Disturbed were given the full stage, huge lighting rig and enough pyro to start World War III to enhance their show. Most support acts get a postage stamp sized piece of stage and a couple of light bulbs but Disturbed’s show was more befitting of their status as a major act in The States and tonight’s show benefitted hugely from this respect.
Ten Thousand Fists did just what it said on the tin as thousands of fists simultaneously shot skywards before Down With The Sickness slammed home on the final strait. It’s been a long time since Disturbed last played up North but their impressive, commanding performance will be remembered for some time to come.
Most new albums these days are heralded by a publicity campaign that seems to run for months that sees the mobilization of street teams, a frenzy of activity on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter not to mention doing the rounds on the radio and TV chat shows so by the end of it everyone and their dog knows that a new release is coming. When Avenged Sevenfold dropped their new album, The Stage, at the end of October with barely a whiff of advance notice, their fans were caught totally unawares. Quite a brilliant yet rather risky tactic that appears to have paid off as the album crashed into the charts at No.2 and steady sales since have kept it well in the public’s consciousness.
With The Stage seeing Avenged Sevenfold at their most ambitious and adventurous heading into at times a Queen-like grandiosity, the artificial intelligence based concept album is screaming for an equally grand stage production. Maybe performing the whole of the new album in its entirety is a step too far at this stage, it is nonetheless an enticing future prospect. For now, however Avenged Sevenfold promised a two hour show of old classics and new songs and they certainly didn’t disappoint.
Opening with the epic title track from their new opus before careering headlong into Afterlife and the classic Hail To The King with the chiming guitar harmonies of Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance swirling around the towering chorus.
Rock shows have over the years grown in scale and spectacle from the fire and brimstone approach of KISS, the theatrics of Alice Cooper or the floating, giant lemons and Trabants of U2, an impressive show is very much part of the event and Avenged Sevenfold may well have raised the bar to new heights with their jaw dropping show designed by the creators of the Cirque du Soleil built around a huge video cube flanked by a series of rectangular screens giving a striking 3D effect.
That would be all well and good but if the music wasn’t up to scratch then the gloss would soon lose its sheen and fortunately Avenged Sevenfold have enough stadium sized Rock stompers to more than match the imagery with a thoroughly riff heavy Nightmare hitting between the eyes.
Avenged Sevenfold have succeeded in taking the Metal template laid down by the likes of Priest, Maiden and Metallica incorporating razor edged riffs, canon fire drums and screaming guitar solos with a modern contemporary and commercial edge that draws in Metal fans from across the generations and that’s no mean feat these days.
During Planets an oversized inflatable astronaut projected through the screens before Acid Rain where the vocal acrobatics of M. Shadows would have given Freddie Mercury a run for his money. Shadows never stayed still for a moment, racing from one size of the stage to the other before running down the walkway and out into the middle of the crowd making every last person in the crowd feel part of the show.
Of course a rampant Bat Country sounded magnificent and the melodramatic Gothic horror of A Little Piece of Heaven replete with sinister animation kept the crowd transfixed as the ghastly story unfurled before a cacophonous series of circle pits erupted throughout the crowd during show closer Unholy Confessions.
As a shattered and thoroughly exhausted sweat soaked crowd filed out into the freezing winter air after a Metal extravaganza lasting the best part of 5 hours the cobwebs of New Year were well and truly blown away. What a great way to kick of the start of this year’s musical festivities.
The flag has been planted. Beat that!!
Review and photographs by MICK BURGESS
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