Gig Review

Impericon Never Say Die 2012
We Came As Romans, Bless The Fall, Stick To Your Guns, For The Fallen Dreams, Obey The Brave, At The Skylines, The Browning
Birmingham, Academy 2
15th October 2012
        

The Browning really impressed me with their debut album “Burn This World”, it was the perfect combination of electronic dance and death metal and I do believe in my review I was excited to see them live due to the party I assumed I would be a part of. That dream was quickly shattered as the gig this early on in the night is severely poor in attendance and the ones that are there are all motion and expressionless. The band played their hearts out and did constantly attempt to get something going, not giving up right till the very last note; “Ashamed”, “Bloodlust”, “Time Will Tell” and my own personal favourite “Standing On The Edge” all of which I am adamant in a better environment could force a fierce party which would take something extreme to match. Whilst I was ecstatic I finally got to see them and loved the show but they were restricted by the minimal attendance, maybe next time lads.

At The Skylines are quite frankly shameful, not musically as they pretty much hit every note spot on even though due to lack of backing vocals half of the fucking songs are missing lines out because the singer alone hasn’t got enough breathe to sing everything on his own, which poses the question why the hell did you overlay the album if you cannot bring it to the live show? Regardless of that annoyance they had the same problem as The Browning in regards to the attendance, however they take a different approach to dealing with it which is by to look miserable and shake their heads at us, not only that but then a member of the opening band At Dawn We Rage I think came out onstage and started purposefully smashing into people and hitting them to try and get them to do what the band asked, as members of the band look on and laugh finding it hilarious. Well here’s a message to you assholes some of us were not fucking impressed. There’s more than music to a live show there is a certain bond needed between the audience and the band which was completely severed after that due to their unprofessionalism, think you need to rethink your strategy because people aren’t going to warm up to a band displaying that kind of attitude.

Obey The Brave found the best way to handle the situation and that was to come out from the word go energised with a positive mindset, it really comes across. Frontman Alex Erian got on with it and made the best of the situation giving positive reinforcement to the ones dedicated enough to turn up to the show injecting a dose of aggression and for the first time to night this is actually a proper concert. It did amuse me that he reminded me of Roy from The IT Crowd (Chris O’Dowd) but imagine his extremely angry skinhead twin brother, its epic. They fly around the stage and you can plainly see that they want to be here and love what they do, the music as well I was extremely surprised by as I found myself loving every second of their set. Nothing fancy, no bullshit, just a bunch of lads from Canada keeping it simple and powerful, we need more bands like this.

For The Fallen Dreams went off without a hitch if you ignore the 1 tiny problem they had with the guitar in the last song, the pits for this band are actually quite formidable compared to all of the previous acts before them, very demanding act who didn’t let up for the entire set trying to get more and more from the crowd. I did really enjoy watching them play and maybe I would have had more of a lasting impression of them if I wasn’t still feeling the adrenaline off the band of Obey The Brave because whilst they were brilliant they lacked that natural onstage dominance and onstage attitude the Canadian lads had, it was slightly more mechanical in all fairness but hey there were a band with some pretty decent songs who put on a great show, you can’t ask them for much more than that.

Stick To Your Guns break down the walls of every negative stereotype ever made about metal and hardcore music, they are an aggressive band with a positive outlook which reflects through their material, rather than express feelings of hatred and anger they give a message of letting it go and living up to becoming stronger, caring human beings by giving us a means to unleash all of life’s frustrations in a room filled with people going through the same things. They energy in the put and the volume of people screaming the lyrics back at the band was just unsurpassed tonight, the room is at the peak of its capacity which isn’t full but it’s definitely filled up by a ridiculous amount. One fan even managed to get on the stage, attempt a stage dive, land on his face and get promptly thrown out, that alongside vocalist Jesse Barnett’s extraordinarily passionate speeches about society and how hardcore music saved his life have truly made this set a special experience that I shall not be forgetting anytime soon. True professionals too all looked at home on the stage, well apart from that one song that Barnett actually got into the audience with his mic to perform a song.

Blessthefall come out to the unfortunate sight of a room that was full 20 minutes previous to a room now even less filled than when the night began, don’t quite understand why so many people have actually left as when I saw the band headline the same venue 12 months ago they packed the room out. Nonetheless they get on with it, definitely more of a younger persons band this is with the fact that lead vocalist Beau Bokan keeps the language clean and less aggressive than the other acts, where the others have had to stay away from asking for pits, stage diving and crowd surfing, Blessthefall flat out ignored that and did it anyway. Beau leans on the speakers and stands on the barrier but it all just seems a little too predictable as it was like watching exactly the same set again.

We Came As Romans drew the short straw which is weird to say about a headline act as they are victim to the least amount of people left for them to play to as by this point nearly everyone has left, they tried to salvage a good show with who they had left and for a while it seemed to be working as there was pits still, people were bouncing and singing along. Bit by bit however this started to slow down to a standstill and even though the band was fighting with all that they had trying not to focus on the large empty space eventually you could see it written across their faces that they were extremely disappointed with the turnout. They had a few sound problems with the guitars and mic’s but all of which got ironed out relatively quickly and the band was back on the offensive, like I said about Blessthefall it’s just one of those nights tonight and maybe they will have better look next time, just come out with some less popular support acts as I think Stick To Your Guns loyal following is what killed it for tonight’s headliners.

The Browning – 3.5/5
At The Skylines – 2/5
Obey The Brave – 4.5/5
For The Fallen Dreams – 4/5
Stick To Your Guns – 5/5
Blessthefall – 3.5/5
We Came As Romans – 3.5/5

Review By James Webb

 We Came As Romans


Dave Stephens
Kyle Pavone
Joshua Moore
Lou Cotton
Andy Glass
Eric Choi

 Bless The Fall


Jared Warth
Matt Traynor
Eric Lambert
Beau Bokan
Elliott Gruenberg

 Stick To Your Guns


Jesse Barnet
Chris Rawson
Josh James
Andrew Rose
George "Schmitty" Schmitz

 For The Fallen Dreams


Dylan Richter
Jim Hocking
Kalan Blehm
Brandon Stastny
Dylan Shippey

 Obey The Brave


Alex Erian
Miguel Lepage
John Campbell
Greg Wood
Stevie Morotti

 At The Skylines


Chris Shelley
Mark Barela
Shawn Yates
Billy Barber
Lucas Canziani
David Angle

 The Browning


Jonny McBee
Noah Robertson
Jesse Glidewell
Collin Woroniak
Drew Ellis

 Band Related Links
We Came As Romans Facebook
Bless The Fall Facebook
Stick To Your Guns Facebook
For The Fallen Dreams Facebook
Obey The Brave Facebook
At The Skylines Facebook
The Browning Facebook
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?