evile live

I’m going to be honest here, trying to give a rational explanation of what goes on at a thrash concert to the untrained eye is almost impossible.  Whatever you think, I’ll just warn you, they aren’t for the faint hearted!

To jump start the night we got Savage Messiah; well jump start is putting it mildly. Watching the audience’s response to Servant to Your Death just said it all really. I mean, there’s a circle pit, and then there’s a water wheel of a circle pit.

Think of ear slicing riffs, grating vocals that echo into the night, a possessed floor and you get the ingredients of Serpent Tongue of Divinity! It was hard to define whether the band was bonded by blood or potentially by whiplash; regardless it was one of the songs of the set!

If you want a good way to say goodbye, do it how Savage Messiah do it; play Insurrection Rising. It’s simple, the audience were bulls, the stage was the gate and the band was all in red. As holy hell burned round the room, it was one of those moments thrash fans would be proud of!

The stage set up was pretty basic; basic meaning a simple Savage Messiah backdrop in the background. However, patched with the dingy red and green neon lighting, it was back to basics. Come off it, who ever heard of a thrash band on a glamorous stage? We aren’t dealing with remixes here!

Savage Messiah were one of those bands where you think ‘how areyou gonna top that?’ There was no ‘forced effort’, it was just a genuine good thrash gig. Remember the phrase “let your hair down”, well at a Savage Messiah gig, it takes the meaning to a whole new level!

So as the sweat soaked floor was packing out ready for re-load, I was kind of asking myself, should I have worn armour? Regardless, as soon as Evile marched on stage, racked on their guitars and tore into their first song, the crowd yet again were just contaminated with the music. It fit together like a jigsaw!

To add Eternal Empire to a set is like dropping a nuclear bomb; it’s fast, it’s furious and sets alarm bells ringing beyond control.  Musically they were spot on and that blood-driven atmosphere vamped up the night. We couldn’t forget the stage divers vs. crowd surfers; I reckon there were a few black eyes with footprint marks on them by the end of the night!

I must admit We Who Are About to Die did take the set to a whole new level / experience; in one word, thunderous!  You’ve gotta have a bit of communication with those ever dedicated fans. Naturally, for the song Cult the singer encouraged the audience to ah-hem, change a certain letter in the word cult. You’ve probably got the gist….

How the hell they managed it I do not know but we got an encore. Three words; Enter the Grave. Basically, as soon as those three words were uttered over the mic, all bets were off! Shirts were off, the sea of hair was soaked, water was repeatedly being poured over heads and I swear as bizarre as it sounds, it wouldn’t be right any other way! Anyhow I survived to tell the tale didn’t i!

by Kathryn Longbottom