Live Review

Rocksound Impericon Exposure Tour 2013 – Manchester Academy 3

• 25th Feb 2013

It’s Friday night and Manchester’s Oxford Road is crowded with gig-goers. All four of the Academy venues are open tonight – the air is thick with anticipation. Walk past the queue stretching around three corners for boyband Lawson, into the Union building, and several floors up, in a tiny room heaving with people, the bands on the 2013 Rocksound Impericon Exposure Tour are ready to cause some chaos.

No-one in the room can doubt the sincerity of hardcore punks Landscapes. Their passion is infectious, their joy tangible as the four-piece tear into a short-but-sweet set, intent on getting everyone in the room sweaty. A pit opens up, fists are pumped, and it’s clear from their intense delivery that whilst Landscapes are opening up the show tonight, they’re a band that can and will headline in their own right, and soon.

Hailing from Long Island, New York, Stray From The Path are a long way from home, but no strangers to Manchester. “We were here with a band called Architects a little while back – ” begins vocalist Drew York, and the rest of his sentence is drowned out by the crowd. The band has been touring long and hard and every bit of experience is reflected in their set. From the eerie toontrack opening to the furious ‘Landmines’, to the last scream of ‘Negative and Violent’ York has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Every bit the showman, he demands circle pits; crowdsurfing and stage diving are expected and encouraged and everyone on the front row takes a battering as bodies fly back and forth.

It’s with even greater enthusiasm that Manchester greets the lads in Bury Tomorrow. ‘Sceptres’ is met with a circle pit stretching from one end of the stage the other, and as the ever-charismatic Daniel Winter Bates asks if anyone would happily never see the five-piece again, a lone dissenter is cheerily denounced. Launching into a raucous, brutal set, the tight riffs, deafening sing-alongs, painful collisions and general pandemonium during songs such as ‘An Honourable Reign’ and ‘Knight Life’ prove to anyone, that lone dissenter especially, just why Bury Tomorrow are the biggest up-and-coming band in the UK metalcore scene.

The crowd grow restless – they want the band they came for. The supports were all very well, but the main reason this show sold out are yet to take centre-stage. The Ghost Inside inspire a fierce loyalty amongst their fans, and everyone tonight is a fan. Tearing through old favourites such as ‘Shiner’, ‘Faith or Forgiveness’ and ‘Chrono’, the band evoke the kind of emotion (and violence) that breaks through everything – nothing matters but the here and now, the brutality of the breakdowns, the fists in the air and the sweat on your skin. Calls for ‘White Light’ are met with an apology from vocalist Jonathan Vigil; since the release of the band’s latest album, he’s been unable to sing the song about his deceased brother live. However, every other shouted request is met with a wall of sound, and as the last words of ‘Engine 45’ die out, sung almost only by the dazed crowd, it’s fairly obvious to all that tonight was something special.

Venue: Manchester Academy 3
Support Band: The Ghost Inside, Bury Tomorrow, Stray From The Path, Landscapes