By Jase Walker
It’s the final European tour by Stray From The Path; I wouldn’t miss it for the world but I’m still devastated that they’ve decided to call it a day and move on. This stop brings them to Tilburg’s 013 for the main room show which is always a good time for metal shows! In addition to this, the tour package also includes Graphic Nature, Alpha Wolf and finally Calva Louise.
It’s a pretty comprehensive tour package with Stray From The Path championing the next era of modern metal acts that are on the way up so it’s a bit of a bittersweet parting gift on their part I guess. Initially walking in it seems that the balcony and upper part of the floor is closed off so it seems ticket sales for this show have unfortunately been a bit low which is a shame.
Anyway things are about to kick off and finally I’m getting to see Calva Louise after so many missed chances!
Kicking things off with ‘Tunnel Vision’, they’re already giving the show everything they’ve got in the way an opener absolutely should do. Following up with ‘Third-Class Citizen’ fills the room with riffs and screaming and I’m genuinely taken back how natural they sound on a large stage like this.
I usually find openers on large stages are sometimes mixed a bit too quiet which ends up in the live sound getting kneecapped but for Calva Louise tonight, that’s absolutely not the case. Their eclectic mix of harsh electronic sounds, riffy metal, latin music comes across brilliantly and what started as a crowd that seemed a bit indifferent at first is now dancing along while making surprised gestures about Calva Louise’s performance.
It’s so cool seeing Jessica sliding her keyboard across to play without having to move away from the microphone and throwing it back when she’s done. Considering it’s a short set, they’ve done a great job of picking some massive bangers for it, ‘Impeccable’, ‘Hate In Me’, ‘Aimless’, and finally ‘Opportunista’. Fantastic opener set from Calva Louise, I just wish I could have seen these sooner, whoops.
Up next is nu-metalcore upstarts, Graphic Nature.
An air raid siren blasts over the speakers, a small monologue plays and Graphic Nature are now in session. This is going to be the point where movement starts properly kicking off, Graphic Nature are not a band that takes a still crowd lightly.
For me personally Graphic Nature don’t really do a whole lot for me but seeing how they’ve clawed their way up to a show of this size and absolutely own it is part of the joy of watching a band find their crowd and build it yet further. The crowd has definitely warmed to them extremely quickly though, they got the circle pit they wanted going and now it’s filled with two-step enthusiasts!
These guys have the high energy show style down to a proper art form: “Tilburg welcome to the mother fucking killing floor”’, no better way to say it than that. To their absolute credit they’re killing this show, even demanding the crowd to kneel down and jump back up sees almost the entire audience on board and Graphic Nature looked cool as hell in the process. So despite the few hands going up earlier in a show of who’s heard of Graphic Nature before, the overall response has been fantastic and they’ve done a brilliant job of showcasing what they’re about and easily won the crowd over. Onwards and upwards lads!
Next up is the main support for this tour, Australia’s Alpha Wolf. These aren’t really a band for me either personally but it’s always entertaining seeing how wild their crowds go and they’re more than worthy of the main support slots for this tour. “Don’t just fucking stand there, pussies!”, never one for being particularly subtle about what they want from a crowd, nor do they give a shit about being a support, it’s their show now.
I mean the band themselves has barely made any direct motions for movement and people are already slamming into each other. Until they told people to get on with crowd surfing, the madness reaches a new pitch almost immediately after.
Their performance is blistering, a fine demonstration of Australian energy who have also put in years and years of working their hands to the bone to make repeated trips back to the other side of the world possible. The crowd here is definitely a lot more familiar with Alpha Wolf by the looks considering how much more I can hear people singing the words back at the band.
Alpha Wolf manages to pull off one of the biggest open pits I’ve ever seen at 013, it spreads almost towards each bar on the sides and after some brave souls do a rowing line in the open space for a moment, people charge at each other with little concern for themselves. Another show of utter madness for Alpha Wolf, I may not be the biggest fan of the music itself but I can recognise when a band has got their performance absolutely cracked. 013 clearly loves Alpha Wolf and the band themselves have picked up on that and delivered the goods.
It’s finally time for Stray From The Path, who consistently signal their start by blasting ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ with accompanying super gay lighting… I love it.
Well, that’s what I presumed anyway, but looks like something’s going wrong with the drums that’s needing some emergency fixes from what I can tell. The drum tech looks to have gotten everything sorted though with a slight delay and things get started with ‘Kubrick Stare’ and the crowd immediately goes mental.
I gotta admit the flashing red/blue lighting is a little bit disorienting as I can feel my head spinning a bit when it’s strobing but I managed to catch a view of a stray pint glass coming flying out the middle of the crowd and smacking the lighting tech in the chest. Everyone here is fully down with the vibe and loudly screams the words out to every single song, Drew is barely having to even try with getting people on board. ‘Shotcaller’ is where things truly feel like it’s kicking off though, everyone is bouncing, there’s a constant stream of crowd surfers coming over the top of the crowd and the entire centre of the crowd is a massive number of people flinging each other around and smashing into one another.
Following it up with ‘Fuck Them All To Hell’ and baiting the Dutch crowd about trying to beat Germany over crowd surfing is really throwing the gauntlet down but it really works! During ‘Good Night All-Right’, Drew puts a pause on the music to get security down to check something out so it looks like someone’s gone down pretty hard and I overheard the sound desk people saying someone’s fully knocked out. We’ve been politely requested to evacuate the hall at this point so this is pretty serious stuff… I don’t know if this is something we can continue on from.
Sadly, seemingly not. I hope whoever was injured manages to make a speedy recovery, if it was bad enough to have to evacuate the main hall then it’ll be no joke. I’m sad that this is how the final Dutch show of their career has gone, stopping barely at the halfway point when the vibe was in full swing is a massive shame but this stuff does happen from time to time.
Apparently they’re continuing on with blasting through the last five songs of the set but this takes the finish time beyond what I can realistically stay through and I have to leave to get home. While I’m quite bummed about the show finishing like this, it’s also a good example of Stray From The Path showing that they take crowd safety very seriously and while it’s sucked that I’ve had to miss what remained of the set, the band shows true integrity for this.
Thanks for all the riffs guys, you’ll be sorely missed.
