Gig Review: Dragonforce - Academy, Liverpool - 12/12/09

Tonight was the last night of the Ultra Beatdown tour cycle, and with Dragonforce announcing that they would be playing no live dates during 2010, this was certainly a night with a lot of excitement surrounding it.

For those of you who have never heard of Sylosis (8), well, you should of! Even with a meagre half hour time slot they still managed to put on truly brutal, fist pumping set of their trademark sound, taking the best of Testament’s thrash sound and grinding it together with Pantera’s groove to produce a unique post-thrash sound. It’s not often you’ll see a band so low on the bill manage to rile the crowd up enough to get a pit going for ever single song, but Sylosis did just that. An excellent performance, which leaves me sorely waiting for their new album and headline tour, both slated for 2010.

Now, anything following Sylosis’s blistering set was bound to sound weak and effeminate, but I’ll admit I wasn’t quite ready for Sabaton (6) and their weird brand of techno tinged “Swedish Gay Metal”. Maybe it was because it was the last night of the tour, or maybe they’re just always like this but I wasn’t entertained by this lot. A few people in the crowd were enjoying the set, but generally speaking most people were disinterested, simply waiting for Dragonforce to take the stage.

This set was quite a hard one to review. On one hand, Dragonforce (7) played everything they needed to to keep people happy, but on the other hand they simply looked and acted like they were fed up of being on tour and one has to wonder if the, apparently, playful verbal sparring between Sam and the audience and Herman doesn’t have more than hint of truth and bitterness behind it, which such questions being asked of the crowd like “Hands up all of those who only Through the Fire & Flames” (to which about of a third of the crowd raise their hands) and complaining that the crowd wasn’t getting involved enough, but that’s ok because “this next song just sounds like all the others we’ve played.” Is this a band on the verge of tearing itself apart? The mandatory Fire & Flames is played as the last song during the encore and, as this is the last night of the tour, the stage is invaded by all three of the supporting bands (Sabaton sans clothes and wielding Guitar Hero controllers), much to the amusement of the crowd. And with that they’re done. Taking a year off is probably the best thing for Dragonforce at this point, though I for one, wouldn’t be surprised if this break doesn’t become indefinite.


Overall gig rating: 7/10. Sylosis by far outshone the rest of the bill but all-in-all it was a good night’s entertainment.
You can find Sylosis at: Myspace, Facebook.