By Jase Walker
It’s August already? Christ. Anyway, after one of the driest months for shows, gig wise, I’ve had in a long time, August is starting with a vengeance and looks to be absolutely packed. Kicking things off on a dreary Sunday is August Burns Red on a mini-tour between festival shows supported by the virtuoso guitar outfit, Unprocessed.
This has been a really big entry in my gig calendar for this year because I fucking love August Burns Red and Unprocessed but also they’re in Melkweg’s smaller OZ room. It’s gonna be absolute carnage tonight and I can’t fucking wait.
The venue is already packed immediately after doors, a real fierce turnout so soon which bodes well for the crowd’s love for Unprocessed. The atmosphere in the room is buzzing with anticipation for the forthcoming show.
The room darkens and is lit up with strobing lights mimicking the thunder of the backing music playing during their walk on. Opening with ‘Hell’, they sound absolutely fucking monstrous! The low end shakes my chest and legs and bearing witness to their mind boggling technical proficiency live really is something else. They ask the crowd to open the pit up and ends up with one guy in the middle looking mad confused before shrugging his shoulders to try and kick something off, nothing really comes of it though, whoops.
It’s absolutely astounding that a band like this can reproduce their recorded material so well in a live show and still have so much grunt to drive it as well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad show from them. After a few false starts on a moshpit, they finally manage lighting the proverbial fire under the crowd’s arse and they’re properly going at it and you can see the payoff written all over the band’s expression.
Another fantastically hilarious moment where someone crowd surfs to the front and lines up a jump back onto the crowd, the photographer gets in position to capture the moment then he instead fluffs the jump and completely stacks it into the floor. The pit vibe is in proper full motion now and the crowd draws back that bit further every time to the point where it’s taking up almost the entire front area of the stage! It was a bit of a rough start for Unprocessed but they definitely got what they wanted from the show and there’s little doubt that the shows properly warmed up now.
- Unprocessed play the ArcTanGent festival on Saturday 16 August.
Anything could happen in the next two hours!
Well we’re not quite off to a great start as August Burns Red were supposed to start at 21:00 but we’re about 25 minutes past this and a tech quickly pops into the stage to announce they’ve got some technical issues preventing them starting.
I spot the stage tech giving the thumbs up and August Burns Red’s opener of ‘Chop Suey!’ gets the crowd fired up. And of course they walk on and finish the rest of the song with their own cover. The bass is a bit quiet by the sounds of things but I’m happy the show’s started despite the technical issues. Sadly they’ve had to cut five songs out of the set because of this which is a real shame.
Anyway fuck it, it’s ABR time and for the time we’ve got its time to respect the riff and lose our minds! The centre of the crowd is already a sea of constant movement and people getting launched over the top. Looking around I can see several unfortunate people getting their beers knocked flying out of their hands due to the sheer ruckus. I knew this was going to be a pretty crazy show but holy shit this is absolutely unbelievable, there is not a single person in this room that isn’t bouncing around like their life depended on it! A big favourite of mine ‘Defender’ from their ‘Guardians’ album is thankfully still in the set!
Some lad surfs to the front and runs across the stage and comes within a hair of wiping their bass player out. I’ve had to keep myself way more vigilant than I’ve been at a show for a bloody long time because people aren’t just crowd surfing here, they’re quite literally rolling around at a phenomenal speed!
This is relentless, every bit as much as ABR themselves. I don’t think I’ve felt this sort of crowd energy since Counterparts at Rebellion in Manchester years ago, everyone here is going absolutely fucking mental! They actually clarify that they didn’t in fact have to cut five songs out but they are having to stomp through the set a bit to make it work.
This show is a runaway train, screaming down a mountain and gathering speed with every passing minute. The brakes are completely gone, vanished into the nether, the only thing that remains is the big riff and the ferocious gathering of people clamouring to be the one that survives the pit battleground.
It’s fascinating watching their singer because half the time it’s almost as if he’s kneeling down to tell a story rather than screaming his lungs out into a mic. As we draw towards the close, the pit has been going for quite literally the entire show but there’s been a steady increase of large shirtless men in there getting a pretty impressive cardio routine done in the process. August Burns Red are a true masterclass in how to do a metalcore show, they know its riff worship and play to that strength immensely. Their vocalist has incredible chops for being a frontman and is truly fascinating to watch too.
Despite the technical issues delaying the show, there was nothing cut out at all and the crowd savoured every single second of it. Truly a fucking phenomenal show.
- August Burns Red play the Ronnie James Dio stage at Bloodstock Open Air this Sunday (10 August).