By Jase Walker
Not being totally content with having enough tinnitus for the last weekend in May, I’m back in Satan’s Hollow for one last gig this week. Today sees Scottish prog metal outfit, Tiberius on tour with Azure and for the Manchester date, local acts Sertraline and Forager. Quite a significant variety of stuff on here tonight’s show along with extremely tight changeover times between bands!
First on tonight is Forager, well known for having massively energetic shows as I’ve noted before and no sooner do a type that, their singer Oli is already straddling the fences of the central stage and head banging directly in front of me! Ordinarily I’d have to keep an eye out for the crowd flinging their arms around and the like but the main danger here is mainly dependent on their guitarist, Alex, spinning around nearby!
One thing that always stands out to me about Forager, and I always make sure to stress whenever I’m talking about them to people; the visual side of their performance matches every drop of energy their music has. They straddle a fine line between math rock and punk, sometimes even erring towards hardcore in parts. We’ve also got a raffle for a prize, which is a “Forager I won the raffle sticker”, some more stickers and an original copy of their demo CD and a beanie as well, definitely one of the weirder things I’ve seen them do. Forager really are bloody fun to watch, genuinely buzzed they’re playing Radar later this year too.
Next up tonight is Sertraline and this show is set to be a bit of a special one as they’re properly unveiling their new singer and have teased a new song along with it. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re having some difficulty prior to kicking their set off which given the short changeover times isn’t great for them. After a delay, it looks like they’re ready to go and get as much of their set done as they can do. I feel bad for them as this delay will cost them a chunk of time.
The dynamic of their new singer, Ben, vs Lizzie is jarring as I’ve been so used to them with her over the past few years, but the pipes on Ben are definitely doing their songs justice. One interesting part to note is that in this instance, they’re using Lizzie’s backing vocals which adds a twist so the sound! It’s fantastic that they’ve managed getting through the earlier issues and smashed it out like this, including getting a pit started in Satan’s of all places! I can tell you this is not a particularly common occurrence here!
The new song they’ve unveiled, ‘The Halo Around The Horns’ shows that on the whole, Sertraline are very much in safe hands with Ben at the front of the band here. A solid recovery and I’ve got more than a few chances to see them again throughout this year, the big one most definitely being on the Dog House at Download festival on the Wednesday; see you there guys!
Putting the work in to get the set changed over as soon as they could, Azure get themselves going with their atmospheric and melancholy playing. I’ve been spinning their most recent album quite a fair bit recently so it’s great to finally get to see these live! Considering Satan’s can often be a bit troublesome with sound given its layout, Azure sound fantastic, guitars well balanced, bass nice and punchy along with the drums, keys coming through the middle and vocals coming right over the top.
Straying in and out of more jazzy segments before slipping back to more traditional prog sounds evokes similarities to the likes of YES. Catchy and bright key melodies that are accentuated by the guitar following them along, there’s so much going on in every passage! Tasteful solos, sudden switches in time signatures, and some damn tasty bass playing to go along with it! I feel like I should be at a show with a band composed of members at least twice the age of these guys with the skill they’re putting on show here.
It’s fantastic to see a band full of younger people that are channelling influences from the older prog outfits, not so much Pink Floyd, but very much the likes of YES, Marillion, Rush. Every single member of this band is smashing it out the park, what an engrossing live show this is, I truly feel like I’m witnessing the early days of something that’s going to grow into far bigger things as they progress through their careers. Think I’m going to go rinse their back catalogue for a few weeks again.
With very little time to spare getting themselves and their stage production setup, Tiberius are racing around the stage making sure all the little bits and pieces are in place. They make good time and get right into it, opening with a track that seems oddly a bit at odds with their normal vibe that’s a bit similar to the likes of Protest The Hero. It doesn’t last long though, the second track returns to more familiar territory, busy guitar work against grand vocals, sudden switches between rhythms, all that good stuff. Grant, Tiberius’s singer, is magnetic in his stage performance, not wasting any time jumping into the audience to mess with people all the while singing at them!
Satan’s Hollow is a notoriously difficult venue to get the sound right but I do wish the bass just had that little bit more grunt to it. I think the stage time delay has thrown some people a bit, initially the crowd was a bit thinner, but it’s properly filled out now, as they should! Tiberius are smashing it massively on stage right now, slightly shaky start but they’ve not let it bother them and they’re right into their stride! ‘Leviathan’ is a legitimate banger, filled with that sort of thumping energy of the likes of Rise Against mixed in with intense riffage.
It’s been a bit of a bumpy ride for Jahan, one of their guitarists, by the looks but he deals with the issues quickly and isn’t out long. On the whole they’ve sounded great and put on a fantastically entertaining live show and made good use of the unusual layout in this venue. I do hope the rest of their tour gives them better stages though, it’s very hard to direct the sound properly when it just fires out in all directions.
Tonight has been a fantastic way to wrap up the week for me though, especially given the insanely busy summer I’ve got planned which starts in earnest next week. I hope Tiberius and Azure enjoy the rest of their tour, and I’ll be seeing Tiberius again at Tech-Fest in June/July!
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