Saturday was yet another night when London was spoilt for choice when it comes to live music. Five Finger Death Punch, accompanied by the likes of Skindred and As Lions, were bringing their energy to Wembley Arena. On the other hand, Bring Me The Horizon, Neck Deep and Pvris were giving the ten thousand people inside Alexandra Palace a night to remember. Finally, in a tiny Camden pub called Our Black Heart, Bury Tomorrow were proving that being one of the best live bands around means small stages as well as massive ones. (But we're getting ahead of ourselves)
London
is spoilt for choice on that wintery Tuesday evening : Cambridge
natives Lonely The Brave are bringing their emotional pop rock to the
Islington Assembly Hall and Beartooth have probably destroyed the
Electric Ballroom with their riffs. Where
did I go, you ask ? To
the Underworld to see a band I've grown to love a lot over the past
year, Stray From The Path.
If you know me, you know I stand for the same thing Bury Tomorrow do : fuck paid meet and greets. Since another band I like (namely Pvris) has decided to make their fans pay for the right to meet them on their upcoming European tour and it made me angry, I will try to word my thoughts in a better way than those five words.
Yesterday, my hometown of Paris has been attacked by terrorists in several different locations. Those locations were the Stade de France, where the French football team was playing against Germany, a couple of restaurants, and the Bataclan, a concert venue where Eagles Of Death Metal were playing to over a thousand people. If I'm not mistaken, around a hundred and thirty people are reported dead and so many others are still missing, or are in hospitals, recovering from their wounds or fighting to survive.
What about me?
I'm in Brighton, England. I'm six hundred miles away from home, heartbroken and wishing I could give a hug to every single person I love.
I had heard about the Never Say Die tour, created by merchandise website and staple brand Impericon, for years, but had never found a line up that catered to my interests at the moment it was around - until the 2015 edition, that is. It is headlined by Australian metalcore outfit The Amity Affliction and also features an excellent collection of hardcore bands - Defeater, Being As An Ocean, Cruel Hand, Fit For A King and Burning Down Alaska.
There is one topic on which the entire alternative scene agrees, and that topic is Beartooth. The metalcore outfit, from Colombus, Ohio, has taken the heavy music world by storm when they released their excellent debut album, Disgusting, and since then, I can truthfully tell you that I have never seen one person say they didn't like them. At the end of 2014, pretty much everyone that mattered in music journalism has put the record in their favourites of the year, and I have to say I fully agree.
As I have mentioned in my post about moral compasses and the music press, last Sunday, I have attended Warped Tour UK at Alexandra Palace, in London. Despite the organisation being shabby at times (late stages, lack of vegetarian options and super strong smell of meat in the main room, gigantic toilet lines, a probably useless amount of queues at merch stands or a delayed opening due to health and safety checks that hadn't satisfied anyone on the first try), I had, overall, a great day watching some of my favourite bands and some I will keep an eye on in the future.
For someone who wanted to write book and gig reviews, I sure as hell end up opening up about more controversial subjects than I thought I would.
Anyone who knows me, even only on the surface, knows that my favourite festival in the world is Download Festival. Since I attended it in 2013, my life has consisted in getting excited for it, being there, missing it and doing it all over again. I start speculating over the following year's line-up when I am there. I start getting excited for the next edition within a week of coming back home. In the space of three years, it has, quite simply put, taken over my life.
On Sunday, I attended the British edition of Vans Warped Tour. There were not many bands I wanted to see - the emo kid in me just wanted to have a sing along to Moose Blood, and the metalcore lover I am was looking forward to celebrating her tenth In Hearts Wake gig.
"We invented light to deny obscurity. We put stars in the sky, we put lampposts everywhere in the streets. And lamps inside our houses. Turn off the stars and look at the sky. What do you see? Nothing. You're facing the infinity your limited mind can't comprehend and you can't see anything anymore. And it scares you. Facing infinity is scary. Don't fret - your eyes will always stop at the stars that block their vision and they won't ever go further. You can ignore the emptiness they're hiding. Turn off the lights and open your eyes wide. You can't see anything. Only the darkness that you're perceiving rather than seeing. Darkness isn't outside of you, darkness is inside."
