'As I Lay Dying'
Suicide silence, Heaven Shall Burn, Sylosis
The Corporation, Sheffield 30/11/2010
Review By Mick (the beard) Staley
I wasn't looking forward to this gig as these bands, apart from Sylosis, were not the sort of music I like and as I drove the 40 or so miles with the snow bucketing down, it didn't make mwe think otherwise.
On arrival at the venue (half hour late) i managed to track down Mitch (SS) to do a great interview, then Tim (AILD) also a great interview.
By this time everything was in full swing and unfortunatley I miss the performance of Sylosis, and most of the Heaven Shall burn set, but what I did see of the latter seemed top drawer with them giving their all.
Next up were Suicide Silence and as I said earlier not a band I like on CD at all so it would be interesting to see what impression they could make on this old rocker, with their live set.
For me it was a bit of a mixed bag, their performance was full of energy and power and the andience were loving it, but for the majority of the performance they were in darkness or behind a bank of fog from the smoke machine. I thought that this was the fault of the venue, but later found out that it was by their design, not my scene at all, if you pay good money to see a band then let us see them!!
Mitch, however is a great frontman, with his screaming vocals and his conducting of the crowd. I do see what the kids of metal see in them, but as for me I was not converted.
Finally the star turn, As I Lay Dying, and thankfully they didn't go for the 'mood' lighting. These guys are a totally different prospect to the previous bunch, as they can actually play as opposed to making noise, and Tim's vocals are not so shrill.
I liked the contrast of the cookie monster vocals with the more clasic style vocals, and the band used the stage very well. I would like to see these guys again as their performance seemed to be getting better as the set went on, but as the security came to tell us all roads from Sheffield were fastly becoming impassable, we made a swift exit.
This was a gig that under different circumstances may have got a better response from me, but as I got stuck for 5 hours in the snow on the way home. I found myself wondering if it was worth it for some run of the mill screamo metal.
