Mitsubishi Electric Hall, Düsseldorf, Germany10th January 2019
Architects - “Holy Hell” Tour 2019 - Special guests: Beartooth, Polaris
One year after their celebrated Palladium gig with WHILE SHE SLEEPS and COUNTERPARTS, ARCHITECTS were once again delighting fans in Germany by paying them a visit at the Mitsubishi Electric Hall in Düsseldorf. This time, the British Metalcore icons from Brighton were accompanied by BEARTOOTH and POLARIS as support acts, as well as by a ton of new songs from their new album ‘Holy Hell’, which was released on November 9th,2018. All in all, this evening had everything you could wish for in terms of a good start into 2019.
Polaris
The latest addition to seemingly growing roster of Australian metal bands marked the start of that special evening: POLARIS, a Metalcore band from Sydney, Australia. Founded in 2012, the band has released its debut album ‘The Mortal Coil’ in 2017 and spent the greater part of 2018 touring as support for PARKWAY DRIVE. https://www.facebook.com/polarisaus / www.polarisaus.com.au
Music & Performance
POLARIS entered the stage around 7pm with a bang. Singer Jamie Hails growled “Dusseldorf!” at the top of his lungs, and with the first riffs of their song ‘The Remedy’, the approximately 4,000 people inside the arena made it clear that they were here to party, as the first circle pits and crowd surfers started to appear instantaneously. Jamie and his band mates delivered an extremely energetic show, which made it clear they took their job as an opener very seriously. For the more melodic song ‘Dusk To Day’, Jamie requested fans to hold up their cell phones, and spectators turned the Mitsubishi Electric Hall into a sea of cell phone lights. After that, the band put the pedal to the metal music-wise once again and gave the people in the mosh pit the heavy riffing they were waiting for. The fans thanked the band in the form of a giant wall of death, which underscored what an excellent addition POLARIS have been for this tour.
Setlist
01. The Remedy
02. Casualty
03. Dusk To Day
04. Crooked Path
05. Consume
06. Lucid
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 8 / 10
Beartooth
A mere four months after their two sold-out club shows in Oberhausen, Columbus’ finest in hardcore, BEARTOOTH have returned to Germany for their support tour of ARCHITECTS. BEARTOOTH have only been around since 2012, but they have already made a name for themselves and enjoyed stellar success since then. In 2014 they have released their debut album ‘Disgusting’, which was followed by their breakthrough second long player ‘Aggressive’. Their latest release from last September is called ‘Disease’, which continues the stellar trajectory of the band’s career with chart positions around the globe. www.beartoothband.com / https://www.facebook.com/BEARTOOTHband
Music & Performance
After a nice and short stage break of 15 minutes, it was time for the second act of that night’s billing. Around 7:45pm the lights fell dark, and the characteristic riff of the opener ‘Bad Listener’ blasted from the speakers, and singer Caleb Shomo and his band members stormed the stage. The crowd seemed to dig the slightly punkier and hardcore music immediately and responded by firing up the mosh pit once again. BEARTOOTH were certainly more than up to the task to keep things going. However, the sound engineers seemingly did not have their lucky day, as the overall mix failed to transport the sheer energy of BEARTOOTH’s songs. Caleb’s vocals felt a little underrepresented (or maybe he was suffering from a cold or something), and the guitars lacked some cutting-edge precision, which made it at times hard to recognize the songs. In the end, it was a good BEARTOOTH gig, but certainly not a great one.
The setlist relied heavily on the newest album, as the band certainly wanted to demonstrate these new songs to a larger audience. But the bottom line is, when you want to see BEARTOOTH really bring the roof down next time, catch them in a smaller venue, which for the moment seems to be a more natural habitat for them.
Setlist
01. Bad Listener
02. Aggressive
03. Hated
04. You Never Know
05. The Lines
06. Manipulation
07. Body Bag
08. In Between
09. Disease
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 7
Total: 7.5 / 10
Architects
Tonight’s headliner, the ARCHITECTS from Brighton, UK formed around 2004. They quickly made of name for themselves together with fellow Brits ENTER SHIKARI as pioneers of Metalcore. Their seventh album, ‘All Our Gods have Abandoned us’, has been released in 2016, right before the band was hit by the tragic death of founding guitarist and songwriter Tom Searle, who passed away after a long battle against cancer, aged only 28 years. Nevertheless, the band decided to carry on and continued touring as a tribute to Tom, and released another album, called ‘Holy Hell’ in November 2018. Find out more about the band via www.architectsofficial.com or https://www.facebook.com/architectsuk.
Music & Performance
At 9pm the stage lit up with ambient laser lights, and the first classic spherical intro notes of the song ‘Death is not Defeat’ accompanied the band’s walk onto the stage. Then the song kicked in for real, and the base line paired with the drums squeezed the air from the lungs of the people in front of the stage. This sonic intensity and the mind-numbing light show had an euphorizing effect on people. Already in the first song break, this resulted in frenetic “Ar-chi-tects” chants from the audience, which reoccurred throughout the set. Each song was accompanied by a carefully choreographed light show and projection, which was occasionally fired up (sic!) by real pyro-technics as well as CO2-cannons. Together with the immensely loud, but artfully balanced soundscape of down-tuned guitars and mighty double-bass drums, it created a brutal and intense experience.
Also, the new songs, on which the set list heavily relied, were embraced by the audience, which was evidenced by a steady stream of crowd surfers. After the song ‘Memento Mori’, the band briefly left the stage, and the audience frantically called for an encore. Their effort was rewarded by two more songs - ‘Gone With The Wind’ and the epic ‘Doomsday’, which brought the total play time to almost two hours, which made up for the rather hefty ticket price of 47 EUR. Witnessing the ARCHITECTS pull off such an amazing show with equal parts precision and dedication represented an absolute pleasure to watch live. So those lucky enough to witness this show were treated to an absolutely memorable experience, and certainly started their concert year right.
Setlist
01. Death Is Not Defeat
02. Modern Misery
03. Nihilist
04. Broken Cross
05. Holy Hell
06. Royal Beggars
07. Gravedigger
08. Mortal After All
09. Downfall
10. Naysayer
11. These Colours Don't Run
12. A Match Made in Heaven
13. Hereafter
14. A Wasted Hymn
15. Memento Mori (Shortened version)
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16. Gone With the Wind
17. Doomsday
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 9
Total: 8.5 / 10
All Pictures by Thomas Eger
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