By Jase Walker
I’m ending this week on a high note by popping back to the Deaf Institute and getting to have a nice sit down while getting my face blasted with tasty riffs from two of the ÜK’s best upcoming bands. Dream State came quite close to calling it a day but have endured and rebuilt the band and I’m finally getting to see them live! Not only that but the tour support is the rather fantastic Led By Lanterns, who I caught a while back supporting As December Falls, and lastly tonight’s local supports are Atheana.
Atheana kicks off with a loud bang and the venue is already pretty packed right from the start, big up the early arrivals to support the openers! Definitely a solid choice to open for tonight’s show with their strong metalcore style and a singer pulling double duty of cleans and uncleans. They do seem a bit choked for space on the stage given the amount of equipment on stage and four people being on the front line but they’re doing well avoiding smacking each other with their guitars!
Their singer’s pretty fierce as well, projecting well although a couple of the high notes seem to be a bit of a struggle but nothing major. Their cuts into heavier parts during some verses are fantastic, and worn well to lead into uplifting choruses as well, my absolute bread and butter here. A short set on the whole but enjoyable nonetheless, a lot of energy and their singer does a great job of keeping the attention focused on them, off to a good start tonight!
A rumble begins just before the stage lights up with flashing pillars and Led By Lanterns storm onto the stage with their singer-cum-hypeman starts getting the crowd going! Led By Lanterns are real fun to watch and the constant upbeat style of their music sees the crowd jumping about and opening a pit in the middle which is less “kick the shit out of people”, and more “grab your mate and have a great time”… Well, until they bait the audience into a wall of death. Really gotta hand it to their singer though, he does an immense job of keeping the crowd buzzing as well as performing vocal duties, proper class act. It’s amusing seeing the merch desk, placed precariously close to the crowd, is keeping a constant eye on the pit getting a bit too close for comfort.
There are a few near misses here and there with attempted crowd surfing, as it has to be said that the Deaf Institute really isn’t a venue where that’s a particularly good idea unless it’s a lot tighter packed down close to the stage. The chorus drop in ‘Six Feet Down’ provokes the centre of the crowd to start slapping into each other, absolute banger. Finishing with ‘Criminal’ wraps up a really solid set that’s been an even mix of their back catalogue and shows Led By Lanterns are on the up and up. I can’t wait to see their upward trajectory over 2023 and onwards, as they’re bloody great.
And finally for tonight, Dream State! Finally after being a fan for so long I’m able to catch them live! The sound is a little all over the place initially with the bass booming and the guitars being quite hard to hear properly. Either way, opening with massive Primrose songs if ‘Open Windows’ and ‘Hand In Hand’ is a great way to get their set off to a start, instantly familiar territory! The crowd response to Dream State has been pretty fantastic right from the start though, front to back, everyone’s going wild jumping around with their arms in the air! To address the elephant in the room about this band though, and it’ll be how Jessie is doing as their new singer after taking over from CJ and I can say emphatically that she’s doing great. The vocal cadence is a bit different with Jessie having a bit of a deeper voice but it sounds fantastic and going off the crowd chants of her name, I’d say everyone else here agrees as well.
Definitely getting my fill of ‘Primrose’ bangers though, ‘Twenty Letters’ goes down a storm and by this point I can see some misty eyes visible in the audience. Jessie openly admits that by this point in the tour she’s struggling a bit but it’s clearly not putting her off delivering every possible bit of energy she still has in the tank. Although the overall mix and balance of the show has been a bit better after the start, the show’s been plagued by intermittent cut outs for different instruments or the entire band at points.
At one point Jessie jumps into the middle of the crowd while singing and the crowd creates a circle around her essentially praising her during it. So I can’t really fault the band in terms of how they’ve been performing, they’re putting so much energy into it and the audience has been responding accordingly and even starting a “rowing boat” pit, much to the amusement of the band.
I really can’t overstate how wild the crowd response has been to Dream State throughout this show, the amount of movement they’ve got and the shout-outs from people that almost feel like they’ve met an old friend again after so long. Finishing with their album title track, ‘Primrose’ brings to a close a set that in spite of the gremlins and sound issues that have happened throughout it, I’ve still enjoyed a lot.
I won’t be passing off a chance to see Dream State again, I love this band so much and seeing them rise again after such a massive schism is incredible. Anyway, I’m gonna rinse ‘Primrose’ again for a month…
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