Opening tonight’s proceedings were London's Blackhole, a band fronted by a Mr. Richard Carter, yes the younger brother of Gallows’ Frank Carter. The quintet delivered a set of pounding aggressive slabs of hardcore in the style of Black Flag. The band themselves are still very young and have a lot ahead of them, with Richard now moving out of his older brothers shadow, Blackhole can now go much further within the hardcore scene.

Next up was Scary Kids Scaring Kids, who in a rather unusual fashion for a band of this vain had a keyboard player with them on stage. Initially I was interested in hearing what this lot had to offer but, as the first song kicked, it soon became clear it was a case of nice name, naff songs. Give them some credit though they had a lot of their own fans in tow and so went down well but their music just really wasn’t my thing.

Following the rather appalling SKSK set I expected a bit more from Drop Dead Gorgeous, another band with another keyboard player, having heard good things about them in the past. However after several technical faults they decided to go without the keyboards and instead enlisted the now redundant ivory tinkler to provide back vocals, going for a two pronged vocalist attack a la Linkin Park or SiKth for example.

Starting with a sample from the Rob Zombie film “The Devil’s Rejects” Drop Dead Gorgeous were on a high already but then the lead singer opened his mouth. The band are like The Used but much worse, I can only imagine whether the keyboards would have improved or destroyed their sound even further. What also got me was the supposed keyboard player’s poor attempts at being a normal vocalist, picking up his mic stand and thrashing round like a man possessed. Somehow I don’t think the eager fans in the front row were too fond of him, having to move to avoid the constant swings from said stand.

Finally the moment everyone had been waiting for. After two years away the 20^th Century Fox theme music blared from the speakers and Every Time I Die took to the stage, starting the madness with “We’rewolf” which saw the crowd morph from the calm atmosphere  that was apparent during the support acts into a frantic mob, surging forwards and laying waste to the floor of the Academy 3.

Playing through a mix of songs from the band’s illustrious career including “Romeo-A-Go-Go from “hot Damn!”, “Apocalypse No and Then” from the breakthrough album “Gutter Phenomenon” and also tracks such as “No Son Of Mine” and “Pigs Is Pigs” from their new album “The Big Dirty”, this was the returning kings treating Manchester to an hour of music, and what an hour it was. Rounding the night off with “The New Black” and the anthem that is “Eblorama”. Every Time I Die are clearly one of the best live bands around and why they aren’t playing much bigger venues is beyond me. The good news is that, if you missed them this tour, they will be back for the International Taste Of Chaos tour. The bad news, you’ll have to wait until October to catch it.

Return To Gig Reviews Main Menu