February
23rd, 2016. A crowd of long haired trouble makers descend on the
Hard Luck Bar in downtown Toronto for a night they will never forget as tonight
is finally Taake’s first show ever in Toronto. A small bar up two flights of
stairs into a small room filled with merch, tables, chairs and restless
metalheads and luckily with our hotel being right across the road, as shitty of
a hotel as it was, we didn’t have to withstand the brutal Canadian cold to
long.
After
being let in and waiting about half an hour, Vattnet Viskar hit the stage. This
band really caught my attention with their last album “Settler” and after
missing them on their last tour with 1349, it was about time I had seen them.
This band had all sorts of energy and their vocalist, Nicholas Thornbury,
sounds even more Black Metal live than he does on record. Playing a set of
songs both new and old, like “Yearn” and “Colony” from the newest album and “Apex”
from their first album Vattnet Viskar really got the crowd ready for what is
next to come, but man did they blow me away.
Young
and In the Way took the stage fairly quickly after Vattnet Viskar and what came
next i really did not expect. Opening with “Betrayed By Light” which sounded to
me a lot like Darkthrone, I was super excited to see what came next. How do I
explain everything past this point? Well, Vocalist Kable Lyall began to remind
me a lot of Niklas Kvarforth from the Swedish band Shining, which was one part
awesome as I haven’t seen Shining yet and figure this is getting me ready for
whenever they make their way to Toronto, but also one part terrifying. At some
point during their third or fourth songs “We Are Nothing” or “Final Dose” I
witnessed Lyall hang from the PA and watching it just waiting for the support
to let go and it to fall on someone, I personally get kneed in the chest and I watched him boot a fan in the front row in the chest straight backwards into
the pit that had opened up. Right, okay, this band is extreme and I'm standing
back when Lyall is near me but past that, this is a lot of fun! After some more
songs like “Oceans of Eternal Depression,” “Self Inflicted” and “Loved and
Unwanted” we got to the end of the night with “Be My Blood.” Remember how i
said he reminded me of Kvarforth? I was ready for him to slit is own writs or
something here. Alas, nothing happened and everyone walked away leaving a lot
of the crowd in awe and somewhat confused.
We have
to wait an hour and a bit after the end of Young and In the Way for various reasons,
mainly being the pretty boys of Taake needed to finish their makeup. Finally
after an insane wait time, the lights go down, the opening begins and out comes
each and every member of Taake’s live band, except Hoest himself. Instruments
start and out he comes followed by a roar from the crowd, this is why we were
all here and this is what we were waiting for. Blasting through every note and
being insanely friendly with the crowd Taake play a slew of songs from their
20+ year career including “Nordbundet,” “Orm” and “Myr” and eventually getting
to the songs I know the best, as they cranked out the first three parts of “Hordalands
Doedskvad.” GG Allen got a very fast paced tribute as Kable Lyall joined Taake
on stage for a cover of “Die When You Die” and sooner than anyone would have
liked, Taake closed their set with “Nattesid Ser Porten Vid, Part I.”
All in
all, everyone there seemed incredibly pleased with the night, there were fans
of every band there and the musicians I had the chance to speak to afterwards
were incredibly kind and seemed very thankful to everyone for coming out on a
Tuesday night. No one was disappointed, especially not me, every band killed it
and that’s all we can ask for as fans.
Vattnet Viskar performance 90/100
Young and In the Way performance 85/100
Taake performance 95/100
Overall experience 95/100
No comments:
Post a Comment