Probably should have gotten to this sooner while it was fresh in my mind, but I had to go to work and it numbed my mind from all things! Anyway, I’ve just remembered I needed to do it so here goes…..
T’other week, me n the usual posse headed on over to sunny Manchester to witness a rather heavy event. It was the ‘Mosh Lives’ tour, headlined by the behemoths that are Emmure. Also in tow were Winds of Plague, War From a Harlots Mouth, the classy I Wrestled A Bear Once and someone new to my radar, Visions.
So it was an early dart from work to get back in time, swing by and pick up Ben, home, change and wait for Ross to pick us up and head over to Manchester where we were meeting Snail (Jim) who was driving up formCoventryfor the show. Few beers in the car and we were there.
Cheekily, we have phoned ahead to Snail to ask him if he had car park money, as we’d forgotten. He did. So we made him walk to the car park barrier and put it in and press the button so we didn’t have to get outta the car! It was raining after all!
We were a tad early, and when we get to a gig a bit early and can’t be arsed queuing, there is only one solution: Head to The Oxford for a swift pre-gig bevvy! We got there, ordered beers and cokes, navigated our way through the labyrinth of staircases to the bogs and back, then settled down for a nice quite pint.
Noooooooooo, that wasn’t gonna happen! You know when you get those drunk old gits who come over completely out of their face and badger you with conversations that you can’t understand?? Yeah, we had one of those! But this guy was unreal! “Students, ya know nothing…. Tell me something??? You don’t know anything… rarararah…” STUDENTS???? Excuse Me?? Feckin students? Sorry mate, you’re harassing a table of ‘kids’ aged 30-33!! He didn’t stop for the entire time we were there and even threatened us with death! “rarararah…. I’ll kill the lot of ya!” Not even joking. He was weird.
So, pints downed in less that hospitable circumstances and we headed over to theClubAcademy, where the drinks are cheaper and the queue was now shorter.
First up were Visions. Can’t remember much about them. They were ok, but nothing really stood out as being amazing and they were more background music for drinking to! We did our usual scout of the merch stalls while they were on! Ben got harassed by some crazed fan to buy a War From A Harlots Mouth CD just ’cause the guy selling it was in the band!! Try as he might, he didn’t make any commission. No sale.
I Wrestled A Bear Once were up next! These guys and gal are crazy! The music is just purely insane. They started proceedings with ‘Ulrich Firelord-Breaker of Mountains’ which, if you ain’t heard it, has the heaviest Inspector Gadget theme tune beatdown at the end! Pure genius! They did some new songs too which were equally as crazy and mine and Snails favourite tune ‘Ain’t No Family’. Ya can’t beat an insane metal song with the most random horse neighing in the middle!
War From A Harlots Mouth aren’t a band I’ve gotten into much, but they were pretty good! Heavy, technical tunes and epic growls mixed in with some fast paced riffery. I only know one song (which is the1:22blast of ‘If You Want To Blame Us For Something Wrong, Please Abuse This Song’ with the machine gun beatdown from ‘Transmetropolitan’), which fortunately, they played!
Winds of Plague were the main reason I was there. I’d not long got their new album ‘Against the World’ and it had been on constant rotation all that week! Not just to prep for the gig, but because it’s just really really good! There are some fantastic tunes on there, the main one I got hooked on was ‘Refined in the Fire’ which I was hoping they’d play at the gig, Built for War (featuring Jamie form Hatebreed) is ace and to top it off, a guest appearance from the living legend that is ‘The Ultimate Warrior’. Yes, THE Ultimate Warrior, the very same Ultimate Warrior that handed Hulk Hogan his arse at Wrestlemania XI in one of the greatest exhibitions of wrestling you will ever see!
The Warrior on a metal album? That can’t be a bad thing!!!!!
Anyway, Winds of Plague hit the stage and played a stormer. I hung back for a while and took in the show! Don’t remember their singer being such a big chap! Built like a tank, so he is! Anyway, a few songs in and I hear the shout of “Decimate the…..” and before he said “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeak” I was en route to the pit for some good old fashioned moshing! Stayed there for a bit, and they played it! Refined in the Fire. “I don’t fear evil, EVIL FUCKING FEARS ME!!!!” Classic stuff.
After all that hot, sweaty pit action I was ready for another cheeky pint and a rest before Emmure bass pulsed their way through the last hour! Our mate Dave couldn’t make it to the gig, and jealously messaged us saying “I hope they play an acoustic set”. Even if they did, I’d imagine it’d still have been heavy to the point of stupid!
Emmure bounded onto the smallClubAcademystage and tor through tunes from their back catalogue and new album ‘Speaker of the Dead’. It was loud and damn heavy. Enjoyed their set from the back, but did feel compelled to launch an assault on the pit for ‘Solar Flare Homicide’. “I see a fire in the skyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
The sounds wasn’t as bass pulse heavy as it was on my previous Emmure encounter, which was probably for the best given that we all nearly died from heart-shaking pulses last time, but the show was still good. Nice to see them doing their own thing on a headlining slot, and with such a good line-up of bands in support!
All in all, a pretty good show!!
Not going to Download festival (Sigh) so next gig is Suicide Silence, After The Burial and All Shall Perish! Follow that with Sonisphere, then Slash (YAAAAAAAAAAAAY), followed by Unearth and 36 Crazyfists a few months later, this year is shaping up to be pretty good!