I had thought about it a lot - it was April and almost a third of 2017 was gone, and still I hadn't been to a heavy gig, this year. This issue is sorted now I've attended Parkway Drive's Unbreakable tour, and I don't think I could have picked a better band than the Australians to start my metalcore year in style.
The evening starts with American hardcore band Stick To Your Guns and, sadly, I ended up missing a chunk of it. It seems the Bataclan thought two security guards on the door were enough for over a thousand people. It's not, and it took us forty five minutes to get inside. By the time I find myself a nice spot on the left side of the room, the Americans have played, what, three songs already, and I am a little bit frustrated. I only end up seeing fifteen, twenty minutes of their set, and I wish it had been more. They're one incredible band, Stick To Your Guns. They have an energy and an honesty like no one else. They're a band I admire a lot, and hearing frontman Jesse Barnett denounce all the wrong Donald Trump is currently doing as well as marvelling over he fact his band is the first hardcore band to have ever played a show in Nairobi, Kenya, reinforces that admiration. Man. I wish I'd watched the whole thing. That band is pure gold.
Next up is Asking Alexandria, and forty eight hours later, roughly, I still don't know what to think.
See, I had accidentally found myself on board with Denis Stoff-era Asking Alexandria. I had seen them a couple of times and had found them quite good, and the show they played at the Engine Rooms in Southampton in August, even though they were missing guitar player Ben Bruce, had been great. I was confused as to what would happen now former frontman Danny Worsnop was back - what would they play, how would they sound, what would their live show be like.
It's safe to say it was a strange experience. A vast majority of the crowd simply does not give the tiniest fuck about what is going on on stage, to a point that just before the band embarks on their last two songs (Not the American Average and extra iconic scene hit The Final Episode (Let's Change the Channel)), Wornsop informs us they're almost finished and they have had "a time" in Paris. Not a brilliant time, not a great time, not even a good time - just a time, they've been here, they've done it, but that's about it.
Objectively, Asking Alexandria sound good. Their performance is arguably much better than it was the last time they'd played the French capital (in October 2015 at the Cabaret Sauvage) and Worsnop sounds like a different man compared to the only time I've seen him perform in the band (Download Festival 2013). His voice is solid and strong, he knows it - maybe a little bit too much. When I listen to The Final Episode, I don't want to hear Céline Dion-like vibratos. I want gnarly screams and I want to feel like 2008 is being revived right before my eyes, complete with raccoon hair and stripy black and red jeans.
Paris totally got the Céline Dion treatment on Thursday.
Don't expect anything to hear off The Black either - Worsnop has made it super clear that Stoff was just there to keep his seat warm, and if, like me, you enjoyed the album, well, too bad, go listen to it on Spotify. Live, it's all about Reckless & Relentless, From Death to Destiny and Stand Up and Scream.
I can't honestly say Asking Alexandria's performance was bad, because it wasn't. As I said, they sounded good and solid, and they have definitely improved over the years. It was just a confusing set. I can't quite place what direction they might want to go towards in the future, and any sort of band dynamic is dead and buried - I just realised I hadn't heard guitarist Ben Bruce pipe up once in the space of forty-five minutes, and it felt a little bit like Danny Worsnop featuring his backing band.
The road to recovery, if there is ever one, will be long and bumpy for Asking Alexandria, and any fondness I'd developed for them during the short lived The Black era seems to have gone down the drain on Thursday.
I might still come back for Moving On, mind you. A power ballad with a banging key change. Who would expect anything else coming from me.
When Parkway Drive come on, I know Paris is not getting the full CO2, fire and spinning drum-kit treatment, but I am over excited nonetheless. (And we still get a drum solo towards the end, and Ben Gordon might just be one of the best metal drummers around as we speak.) The feeling I had when I saw them last year play La Cigale and then Brixton Academy has rarely ever been matched by any other band, and it hit me, on Thursday - they might just be the best band to have ever graced a stage. Yes, like in the history of ever.
Even if I tried my hardest to find something to pick on, or something to debate about, or even something to nuance, make a comparison with the previous times I'd seen them, I could not. Parkway Drive offered Paris an absolutely flawless metal show, and after about five seconds (the time it took to Wild Eyes to start and to the confetti cannons to explode over the already sweaty Bataclan), I stopped caring about the fact we weren't getting any pyro tonight. And Lord knows how much I love pyro.
Also, I think we need to talk about how great an opener Wild Eyes. How great a song Wild Eyes is.
Hell, maybe we just need to discuss how great a band Parkway Drive is.
On Thursday, I found a thing I liked more than a regular singalong. Shocking, am I right?
You know, some songs have a little bit, a word, a sentence that has become a classic, and when it's being played live, everyone shouts it at the top of their lungs.
A Day To Remember's "Disrespect your surroundings", Architects' "You had it all, you fucking pigs". That kind of thing.
And, of course, I couldn't dare to forget the beginning of Parkway Drive's Carrion. There's nothing more satisfying than hearing a thousand people echo one single word, one single sentence, and there's also nothing more satisfying than being a part of it.
And maybe, maybe the main thing about why I love seeing Parkway Drive live so much is that wherever you are in the crowd, whether you are in the moshpit or on the side, whether you crowdsurf or just sing along, whether you move or you stand still, is that you are part of something. Something slightly bigger than you. It's not really a sense of community, even though that feeling will kick in towards the end, as frontman Winston McCall reminds us of the Bataclan tragedy and tells us that our energy is the flower we need to strive towards a better world (roughly). It's a sense of belonging. It's the fact that you enter the room and Parkway Drive enter the stage, and all of us, the five people on stage and the thousand people or so in the room, we are one.
McCall will spend a big chunk of their set thanking us for our energy and saying we are perfect, but really, our energy was just trying to match the one displayed on stage. Heavy music sticks with me because it helps me channel my anger and frustration, sometimes, but also because it is beyond my understanding capacities. I have grown up alongside it and the whole "ugh, it's just noise" mentality never hit me as it was so common in my household. Yet, sometimes, I can't exactly quite comprehend how something so loud and so brutal can be so beautiful.
Because what I've seen on stage, on Thursday, it's art, and it's pure beauty, and it's positive energy from start to finish, from every lyric to that stupidly stunning guitar solo in Idols and Anchors - and that comes from someone who never really gave a damn about guitar solos. I feel the same way I had felt after Brixton and after La Cigale - that band is so damn special. There's something to admire about such a band, you know. They have mastered the art of producing songs that are stupidly heavy and at the same time, stupidly catchy (you should have seen my dance moves!), and they have mastered the art of performing them on stage perfectly, night after night. That is one thing I have trouble understanding, sometimes. Metalcore is tough to perform and it takes a lot of energy out of the band playing. And yet metalcore bands are often the ones doing the longest, trickiest, most exhausting tours. Credit where credit's due, yeah?
When it hit me that Parkway Drive might just be my favourite live band (that took approximately half a song, and was set in stone when I started dancing on my little step to Vice Grip and Karma), I decided that I want them to become the biggest metal band in the world. I still stand amazed at how many people in this world connect with something that is not on mainstream media and that is a niche, and I want it to become even more and more important. After selling out Brixton Academy twice, maybe they should head for Wembley, next time they're in the UK. I just think it's about time a really heavy metal band found its way to arena size venues.
The Ire era is probably reaching its end, and God, it makes me sad. I kinda feel like I just want this band to tour year in, year out, and to see them every single day of my life. What greater feeling can a band give you, yeah.
{ PS : I didn't want to have to write an extra something about security being terrible, but what's gotten into every single one of you security people? On Thursday, crowdsurfers were being kicked out for being "violent", as if security hadn't been informed of the fact that this was, indeed, a heavy metal gig with limbs flying around and a frontman that was going to ask people to crawl on top of one another in perfect harmony. Security then tried to tell people that if they crowdsurfed more than once, they would be kicked out - and obviously, telling them near the speakers and while the band was playing was the best, most practical solution they thought about. I also had a security guard throwing a guy on me for no valid reason. I was just there, boogying like you shouldn't boogie to a metalcore band, and a crowdsurfer fell on me, pushed about by a security guard. Some training is in order, folks }
It's safe to say it was a strange experience. A vast majority of the crowd simply does not give the tiniest fuck about what is going on on stage, to a point that just before the band embarks on their last two songs (Not the American Average and extra iconic scene hit The Final Episode (Let's Change the Channel)), Wornsop informs us they're almost finished and they have had "a time" in Paris. Not a brilliant time, not a great time, not even a good time - just a time, they've been here, they've done it, but that's about it.
Objectively, Asking Alexandria sound good. Their performance is arguably much better than it was the last time they'd played the French capital (in October 2015 at the Cabaret Sauvage) and Worsnop sounds like a different man compared to the only time I've seen him perform in the band (Download Festival 2013). His voice is solid and strong, he knows it - maybe a little bit too much. When I listen to The Final Episode, I don't want to hear Céline Dion-like vibratos. I want gnarly screams and I want to feel like 2008 is being revived right before my eyes, complete with raccoon hair and stripy black and red jeans.
Paris totally got the Céline Dion treatment on Thursday.
Don't expect anything to hear off The Black either - Worsnop has made it super clear that Stoff was just there to keep his seat warm, and if, like me, you enjoyed the album, well, too bad, go listen to it on Spotify. Live, it's all about Reckless & Relentless, From Death to Destiny and Stand Up and Scream.
I can't honestly say Asking Alexandria's performance was bad, because it wasn't. As I said, they sounded good and solid, and they have definitely improved over the years. It was just a confusing set. I can't quite place what direction they might want to go towards in the future, and any sort of band dynamic is dead and buried - I just realised I hadn't heard guitarist Ben Bruce pipe up once in the space of forty-five minutes, and it felt a little bit like Danny Worsnop featuring his backing band.
The road to recovery, if there is ever one, will be long and bumpy for Asking Alexandria, and any fondness I'd developed for them during the short lived The Black era seems to have gone down the drain on Thursday.
I might still come back for Moving On, mind you. A power ballad with a banging key change. Who would expect anything else coming from me.
When Parkway Drive come on, I know Paris is not getting the full CO2, fire and spinning drum-kit treatment, but I am over excited nonetheless. (And we still get a drum solo towards the end, and Ben Gordon might just be one of the best metal drummers around as we speak.) The feeling I had when I saw them last year play La Cigale and then Brixton Academy has rarely ever been matched by any other band, and it hit me, on Thursday - they might just be the best band to have ever graced a stage. Yes, like in the history of ever.
Even if I tried my hardest to find something to pick on, or something to debate about, or even something to nuance, make a comparison with the previous times I'd seen them, I could not. Parkway Drive offered Paris an absolutely flawless metal show, and after about five seconds (the time it took to Wild Eyes to start and to the confetti cannons to explode over the already sweaty Bataclan), I stopped caring about the fact we weren't getting any pyro tonight. And Lord knows how much I love pyro.
Also, I think we need to talk about how great an opener Wild Eyes. How great a song Wild Eyes is.
Hell, maybe we just need to discuss how great a band Parkway Drive is.
On Thursday, I found a thing I liked more than a regular singalong. Shocking, am I right?
You know, some songs have a little bit, a word, a sentence that has become a classic, and when it's being played live, everyone shouts it at the top of their lungs.
A Day To Remember's "Disrespect your surroundings", Architects' "You had it all, you fucking pigs". That kind of thing.
And, of course, I couldn't dare to forget the beginning of Parkway Drive's Carrion. There's nothing more satisfying than hearing a thousand people echo one single word, one single sentence, and there's also nothing more satisfying than being a part of it.
And maybe, maybe the main thing about why I love seeing Parkway Drive live so much is that wherever you are in the crowd, whether you are in the moshpit or on the side, whether you crowdsurf or just sing along, whether you move or you stand still, is that you are part of something. Something slightly bigger than you. It's not really a sense of community, even though that feeling will kick in towards the end, as frontman Winston McCall reminds us of the Bataclan tragedy and tells us that our energy is the flower we need to strive towards a better world (roughly). It's a sense of belonging. It's the fact that you enter the room and Parkway Drive enter the stage, and all of us, the five people on stage and the thousand people or so in the room, we are one.
McCall will spend a big chunk of their set thanking us for our energy and saying we are perfect, but really, our energy was just trying to match the one displayed on stage. Heavy music sticks with me because it helps me channel my anger and frustration, sometimes, but also because it is beyond my understanding capacities. I have grown up alongside it and the whole "ugh, it's just noise" mentality never hit me as it was so common in my household. Yet, sometimes, I can't exactly quite comprehend how something so loud and so brutal can be so beautiful.
Because what I've seen on stage, on Thursday, it's art, and it's pure beauty, and it's positive energy from start to finish, from every lyric to that stupidly stunning guitar solo in Idols and Anchors - and that comes from someone who never really gave a damn about guitar solos. I feel the same way I had felt after Brixton and after La Cigale - that band is so damn special. There's something to admire about such a band, you know. They have mastered the art of producing songs that are stupidly heavy and at the same time, stupidly catchy (you should have seen my dance moves!), and they have mastered the art of performing them on stage perfectly, night after night. That is one thing I have trouble understanding, sometimes. Metalcore is tough to perform and it takes a lot of energy out of the band playing. And yet metalcore bands are often the ones doing the longest, trickiest, most exhausting tours. Credit where credit's due, yeah?
When it hit me that Parkway Drive might just be my favourite live band (that took approximately half a song, and was set in stone when I started dancing on my little step to Vice Grip and Karma), I decided that I want them to become the biggest metal band in the world. I still stand amazed at how many people in this world connect with something that is not on mainstream media and that is a niche, and I want it to become even more and more important. After selling out Brixton Academy twice, maybe they should head for Wembley, next time they're in the UK. I just think it's about time a really heavy metal band found its way to arena size venues.
The Ire era is probably reaching its end, and God, it makes me sad. I kinda feel like I just want this band to tour year in, year out, and to see them every single day of my life. What greater feeling can a band give you, yeah.
{ PS : I didn't want to have to write an extra something about security being terrible, but what's gotten into every single one of you security people? On Thursday, crowdsurfers were being kicked out for being "violent", as if security hadn't been informed of the fact that this was, indeed, a heavy metal gig with limbs flying around and a frontman that was going to ask people to crawl on top of one another in perfect harmony. Security then tried to tell people that if they crowdsurfed more than once, they would be kicked out - and obviously, telling them near the speakers and while the band was playing was the best, most practical solution they thought about. I also had a security guard throwing a guy on me for no valid reason. I was just there, boogying like you shouldn't boogie to a metalcore band, and a crowdsurfer fell on me, pushed about by a security guard. Some training is in order, folks }