Another Night In London With Devildriver, Behemoth and Friends

As I was lucky enough to grab tickets to the Devildriver/Behemoth tour, last Friday I along with 3 of my friends was off to the newly refurbished "relentless" Garage in Highbury & Islington for a Friday night dose of Metal and chaos.

First minor rant. Who in their right minds puts the doors time for a gig on a Friday in London at 5pm. Even school kids are gonna struggle to make that if they're from anywhere around the m25 or further afield. I'll come back to this later but minor rant over for the time being.

After leaving work early thanks to my generous boss, I met up with my friends at "The Famous Cock" pub (gotta be one of the best pub names ever) next to the tube station around 5:20. As is tradition at virtual all gigs, the doors had only just opened when I got there, and we actually got in fairly painlessly and quickly. The tickets said on them that there was a curfew in place for 10pm, so I was quite looking forward to getting home relatively early. A glance at the timesheet on the wall showed Devildriver scheduled to be on from 9:15 - 10:45, so much for early. Why put that on the tickets if its not true?

The garage has only recently reopened after a long refurbishment and it does look good for the work, the bar area looking especially good and the floor enlarged, though I don't think the capacity has doubled as some were suggesting. We grabbed a drink from aforementioned bar just in time to watch Reading boys Malefice open the proceedings. Unfortunately the sound man wasn't quite as ready as they were, so they were stood on stage for a couple of minutes waiting for the sound guy to get his act in gear. Once that was sorted the band raced through their (criminally short) 20 minute set, cramming in as much as possible and getting a good response from the ever-growing crowd. I am not familar enough with their Material to pick out a setlist, but they put on a great show (as they have done every time I've seen them, this being the third time) and it is a shame they had such a small amount of time, particularly due to the bands directly above them.

Malefice: Ball crunching British metal

Back to the bar for another round and we stayed there during Trigger The Bloodshed, one of the up and coming bands in the UK's "Deathcore" scene. I cannot stand this kind of music as a rule of them (prime example being Job For a Cowboy nearly ruining the Gigantour last year and being booed solidly by 5,000 Megadeth fans inside Brixton Academy) and unfortunately Trigger The Bloodshed did nothing to change my opinion. They sound like every other band producing this style of music with nothing unique or special about them whatsoever. The only blessing was that the sound had been adjusted so you could barely hear the singer, this made them pretty bearable until this was corrected. The rest of the crowd seemed as uninterested as us, and reinforced my belief that they should never have been on the bill in the first place and Malefice should have had a longer set.

We had a nice slot by the bar so decided to stay there for Suicide Silence. My hopes were not high for them either, but since they have recently been on tour with everyone from Megadeth and Slayer to Behemoth, that suggests they would have some good qualities about them. I will give them their due, unlike Trigger and numerous other bands of the style, they have some good hooks and riffs, my main problem lying with the vocal style. If you have not heard Suicide Silence, it's like a squeakier Anaal Nathrakh alternating with the Deathcore "Pigsqueal" style. My friend Matt summed it up when he said "perfect, if it wasn't for the vocals". They did have a good crowd reaction although the singers repeated asking for circle pits did not often get the reaction he wanted. They are not my cup of tea, but I can see why people like and enjoyed them, unlike Trigger.

After a lengthy changeover (and things had already been gradually overrunning from band to band), things took a definite upturn when Nergal, Orion and the rest of Behemoth appeared onstage and announced "London, this is Ov Fire and The Void". Que most of the Garage going absolutely batsh*t, although the impact of this fantastic song was lessened by the fact there was no sound coming out of Inferno's Bass Drum. You could hear the rest of the kit fine, just no bass drum (very strange). The bass drum kicked in 3/4 of the way through the song and sounded great, and the band stormed offstage after finishing the opener, I'm guessing to make sure there were no repeats.

They mixed the old with the new as songs like Demigod and Lam went down a storm (my friend Steve repeatedly disappearing into the pit and returning looking very battered) and the mighty Slaves Shall Serve had almost everyone on the floor singing along and headbanging. Nergal then disappeared offstage to don his headgear for the set closing Chant For Eschaton 2000 leaving everyone very happy. The only downsides were the sound on the opening song, that they only had 40 minutes, and the show was now running so late they finished when Devildriver were supposed to start

Behemoth set list:

Ov Fire & The Void
Demigod
Conquer All
Alas, Lord Is Upon Me
LAM
At The Left Hand Ov God
Slaves Shall Serve
Chant For Eschaton 2000

After the changeover, time to see Devildriver live for the 8th time. I was feeling very tired (decidedly un-metal) by this point so had decided not to stay for the whole Devildriver set but wanted to hear a number of songs (I Could Care Less, Clouds Over California and Hold Back The Day) in particular before I'd think about leaving. Around 9.45 the lights went down and a massive circle pit had formed before Dez and co appeared onstage to the opening strains of End Of The Line (definitely their best option for an opener, it always makes people go nuts) and the bedlam ensued. They didn't even blink before launching into Not All Who Wander Are Lost and then following up with Nothing Wrong from their first, self-titled album.

Devildriver: Usual sized moshpit

Dez Fafara did not seen his usual talkative self, preferring to rattle through the songs as fast as possible, perhaps conscious of the fact they were half an hour late on. The title track from new album Pray For Villains went down a storm (its by far the best song on the album) and when Dez introduced the next song as being about "their home California" the craziness went up even more levels. Things calmed down ever so slightly as they played the excellent Fate Stepped In. Dez then asked who had the first album, and announced that "they would never stop playing this" as the very familar riff from I Could Care Less kicked in, accompanied by a large circle pit and an awful lot of headbanging. They followed this by going straight into Hold Back The Day (woo!) so myself and Steve just proceeded to go nuts, as was the style of the evening.

It was at this point that I sucked out and left, being very tired and having seen everything I wanted to see apart from Meet The Wretched which was always going to be right at the end if they played it at all. However I did get the full setlist for those who are interested, and can be seen at the end of the post. Another fantastic performance from Devildriver, who really are incapable of putting on a bad live show. Having seen them 8 times, this is possibly one of the best times, along with Download in the Dimebag tent in 2007. Behemoth have also completely won me over, not having been a massive fan before this but there is something very awesome about them live. My only recommendation, next time leave the deathcore bands at home.

DevilDriver set list: