Tonight (March 5th, 2016) at The Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada 3 bands
descended on out lovely city. 3 bands
out of the UK that formed the British
Invasion Tour, consisting of openers While
She Sleeps, main support Asking Alexandria
and headliners Bullet for my Valentine
that led to a completely sold out show, packed crowds and a ton of overly
excited fans including a few I watched come out from meeting Bullet for my Valentine that we in
tears and a couple more that burst into tears when we went to meet Asking Alexandria.
Once
everyone was in, and I mean pretty well everyone as the place packed in really
quickly, and we waited almost an hour we finally got our first band, While She Sleeps. This was a band I
personally had no prior knowledge to outside of checking a couple random songs
out of their setlist on youtube and to be honest, I wasn’t impressed with their
studio sound. Live however was a different story, live I could get behind and
really enjoyed. Opening with “Brainwashed”
the band came in to a very positive reaction from the crowd, having a good
amount of control over pits and headbangers the band dominated “This Is the Six” and finally a song I
knew “Death Toll” without missing a
beat and keeping the crowd interested. After a few more songs, “Seven Hills” and “Four Walls” were the set closers and while I’m sure they had plenty
of fans in the crowd, the audience was much to rowdy and ready for Asking Alexandria to take the stage.
On their
first proper tour with Denis Stoff
in North America (only other one being Warped
Tour) Asking Alexandria took the
stage quickly and started right into “I
Won’t Give” one of their new songs off “The Black” and the first single released with Denis. Cranking through and showing off Denis’ vocal prowess live compared to studio alongside bandmates Ben Bruce, Cameron Liddell, Sam Bettley
and James Cassells the band took
over the entire crowd. “Run Free”
and “The Death of Me” followed
before the band started talking to the crowd much, not leaving too much time
for people to get restless the band continued with older material like “Closure” and “To
The Stage” which truly floored me, with my only other experience seeing
this band being Mayhem Fest 2014
with ex-vocalist Danny Warsnop who
barely preformed any harsh vocals, even in songs consisting almost solely of
harsh vocals, seeing Stoff dominate
and make these songs his own was inspiring. After another little chat, something
about masturbating with half a hard on the band started the title track of the
new album “The Black” which was
honestly a song that didn’t impress me when it was released. Live I have my complaints;
the chorus is electronically done to make Stoff’s
vocals skip which they can’t do like so the chorus doesn’t actually get sung
live. Besides this, the song kills and has a ton of power behind it. With “Not the American Average” and “A Prophecy” following, the band was
ready to close the set with “The Final
Episode(Let’s Change the Channel)” not before getting one last major pit
started by splitting the crowd right up the middle for a wall of death. With
this, the band said goodnight and made their way off the stage.
We
moved back as the crowd got restless and made our way to the balcony of The Phoenix, from up here we could see
the stage perfectly and watch mayhem ensue as Bullet for my Valentine took over. The wait was fairly short to get
all their lights, the drum riser and whatever else set up. Motorhead classic “Ace of
Spades” began blasting through the speakers and with the crowd singing
along to every word in the memory of the late Lemmy, the moment the song ended “V” the opening to the new Bullet
for my Valentine album “Venom”
began, the lights went down and quickly the band took the stage to a roar of
applause and kicked right into “No Way
Out” and “Skin” showing off the
new songs to a crowd who hasn’t had the chance to see them yet. The audience
soaked it up singing along with every word and getting crazy, “Your Betrayal” followed with its
signature opening drumbeat. “4 Words (To
Choke Upon)” really got the pits open while the chanting in “You Want A Battle (Here’s A War)” got
the crowd singing louder than the band, they seemed truly shocked the crowd had
this much to offer still and jumped into an acoustic opening for “The Last Fight” having the audience
sing the first half of the song before the real version started. “Raising Hell” was the song I was really
looking forward to, being the first song the band released after “Temper Temper” which a lot of fans were
not overly fond of, the song dominates both on album and live and it got the
pit to massive sizes and this closed with a wicked drum solo! The crowd was
eating out of the bands hands already from the last song and the solo so what’s
better than to jump into the band’s signature song “Scream Aim Fire”? Eventually Matt
Tuck introduced the song that just turned 10 years old a couple weeks ago
and broke into “The Poison” which
was a nice change hearing a lot of older content from the band. “Alone”
and “Worthless” followed before i finally
got to see the one song I was incredibly excited for, years ago on Playstation
2 i had this game called Burnout Revenge and it had this song called “Hand of Blood” on it, it drew me in and
started me on my road to really getting into Bullet for my Valentine and now
who knows how many years later, I finally got to see it live. The band left the
stage, red lights came up, and the guitar started, the crowd went wild and thus
started the encore with “Tears Don’t
Fall” and a full audience sing-along. The closing song was more of an
opening song but it definitely drained the crowd of the rest of their energy, “Waking the Demon” destroyed the venue,
the audience was exhausted and everyone looked thrilled with the night and so
was I.
While She Sleeps performance:
75/100
Asking Alexandria performance:
90/100
Bullet for my
Valentine performance: 95/100
Overall experience:
90/100
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