Welcome
to Bloor St. In Toronto, one of the busier areas of the city, this is the area
where a lot of venues are as well but tonight we are at Lee’s Palace to catch the (mostly) Canadian Skeletonwitch tour “No Sleep
Till Vancouver” with only local support coming from Droid and Abyss
respectively. The day is incredibly hot and humid and most of us were trying to
get into the venue to cool down a bit and get out of the sun, but come 8pm the
doors finally opened and we were welcomed in.
Around
8:30 the first band, Droid, took the
stage and it was a pleasant surprise. While these guys didn’t have a whole lot
of stage presence and mostly stood in place with mild movement they played
their hearts out and knew how to talk to the audience and joke with them.
Between some pretty wicked guitar solos, great drum work and groovy bass lines,
no one in attendance seemed to dislike this 3 piece band and they got a pretty
good reaction after each and every song they played.
Next up
were Abyss and as much good as I
want to say about their brand of Death Metal, it’s a little hard after this performance.
The band made it through one song without a bassist (due to technical issues)
before stopping to make a couple bass jokes. It didn’t just stop there though,
after about 15 minutes of rather unfunny bass jokes, relentless talking and
even having people in the crowd telling them to just play the band were finally
rejoined by the bassist and they played about 3 more songs before calling it
for the night. Plenty of people walked out after about 5 minutes of waiting and
the music itself wasn’t all that extraordinary anyways, with the bass being
inaudible most the time outside of what was maybe a 2 second solo in one song.
Alas, Skeletonwitch were finally set to take
over, with this being their first headlining tour with Adam Clemans on vocal duties, I was very interested in seeing how
he would fare compared to the first time I had seen him while the band was on
tour with Abbath. To start, I have
to give Clemans praise, he has taken
complete control of the band, looking incredibly comfortable with the band and
moving around a lot more and getting in touch with the audience. The band came
out and kicked off with “Beneath Dead
Leaves” and “Burned From Bone”
off the last album “Serpents Unleashed”
to great response from the crowd. “Crushed
Beyond Dust” is a fan favourite track and got blood pumping that may have
slowed for some of the audience during the last band and opened the pit up,
only to be followed by the new song “Black
Waters” off the bands new EP “The
Apothic Gloom”. The band even broke out a couple past songs they had never
played before, “Gorge Upon My Soul”
from the bands 3rd album “Breathing
the Fire” and “This Evil Embrace”
before jumping into another song from the EP “Well of Despair”. Going back to the beginning of “Beyond the Permafrost” the fast paced “Upon Wings of Black” began and got the
pit moving at full speed, it may be a Tuesday, but people are partying like it’s
a Friday. In the final few songs they band broke out some of the best in the
books, “The Apothic Gloom” which is
quickly turning into one of my all time favourite songs from Skeletonwitch, “This Horrifying Force (The Desire to Kill)” which saw Clemans interacting with the audience
the way a lot of singers are scared to, letting them sing into the mic.
Finally, to close out the set the band played the fourth and final song off the
new EP, the epic, 7 minute long “Red
Death, White Light” which honestly, is the quickest 7 minutes that’ll pass
with the high energy of Skeletonwitch.
While I
praised Adam a lot all the members deserve
their due, Evan Linger and Scott Hedrick show how in sync they are
often normally being side by side guitars held out together. Dustin Boltjes is a monster drummer, an
intimidating looking guy and one of the nicest people you could ever meet and
of course Nate Garnette, AKA N8 Feet Under who is not only a wicked
guitar player, but tries his voice at backing vocals and damn can this guy
scream! It would be cool to see him do a song where he rocks vocals of the
first album, “At One With the Shadows”.
Tonight,
Skeletonwitch played a slew of great
old songs and showed off the entire new EP live, they’re a force to be reckoned
with. One of the strongest live bands out there and getting better with each
and every show, Adam Clemans and
claimed the bands as his own and while many fans were sceptical, myself
included, he’s far from a clone, this is the new voice of Witch. The tour continues through Canada and into the states for a
couple shows so if they pass by your way, check it out, it’s well worth the
time.
Droid performance: 80/100
Abyss performance: 35/100
Skeletonwitch performance: 95/100
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