Wembley is already buzzing by the time we arrive. We like to be fashionably late to these big shows, queues are horrible, winter is horrible and frankly food is mega expensive at these places, so we always eat before. So we enter fashionably late as Five Finger Death Punch are literally coming on stage and as I said already, the place is buzzing.
The band kick it all off in true style and we rally through a host of songs ranging from the general funky to the all out metal and at least a third of the standing crowd are singing every single word, the rest of the room nods their heads enthusiastically. I’ll be honest, FFDP were never really my thing when I was younger, but I could totally dig these guys tonight and the energy they bring is something you rarely see at gigs these days. They even get the entire room to lift their phones or lighters in the air and Wembley Arena is lit up in this beautiful sea of light, so bright it lights the room up as much as the house lights would and what do FFDP do with this? They play another few rocking tunes.
And although Five Finger Death Punch really got the crowd engaged, every single person in that room had come to see Avenged Sevenfold, fire blazing deathbat and all! So as with any Avenged Sevenfold show there is fire, there are explosions loud enough to shake the room and the band work their way through the newest tracks in their massive arsenal and scatter it with everything back to 2007’s self-titled album. They are saving the classics until last.
Synyster Gates is given his own song (or 2) length solo to show off what hard work and dedication can lead to in talent and he’s joined by drummer Arin Illjay to blast some beats from his massive drumkit. The kid is good, annoyingly good considering his age and again this band just oozes hard work and talent.
Finally Matt chimes in his ever eerie tones ‘Let’s take London to Bat Country’ and the band rip through the song to the cheers of all in the room; not that everybody wasn’t already enjoying the set, but there’s always something about the old tracks.
They sneak in Chapter Four from Waking the Fallen, but in putting in the long song, forgo Beast and Harlot. The only thing that I was a bit sad about with this gig, but only because that is one HELL of a tune. But when you’ve got 6 very successful albums and a host of a back catalogue as Avenged Sevenfold have, then sometimes you give up some songs in the act of breaking out some of the others for old times sake and as usual, the band fail to do anything over than blow the room away.
9/10
