Following a great interview (coming soon) with headliners Idiom prior to the gig, the night began with Beneath The Depths, who looked and sounded like they were trying to imitate Bring Me The Horizon. There was no substance or power behind the vocals, which sounded horribly forced and there wasn’t much differentiating between the songs. Some of the tracks featured sparse sections of nothingness played from a backing track that made the songs sound like they’d ended, resulting in a few awkward silences of people unsure about whether to clap or not. Still, they’re young, so they have plenty of time to improve and the only way is up from here.
Up next was Black Diamond, who had a mature and well-developed sound despite only being fairly young. Their singer had a breathtaking voice and you could see the passion that the whole band put into their performance – it was really welcome and rewarding to watch, and as the set progressed they just seemed to get better and better, really feeding off the positive vibes in the room and there was a good amount of energy onstage. It perhaps would have been better if the music/lyrics on a stand in front of the singer had been memorised, but it was a truly excellent performance from a band brimming with potential – they certainly have the raw ability to go very far in the industry.
Headlining the night was the fantastic Idiom. Having seen this band many times over the years, I’ve never seen them play a bad show but I can say without a doubt that this was the best I’ve ever seen them and the set had a certain sparkle to it that I’d never quite witnessed in the past.
There was a furious and passionate energy about their performance right from start to finish and quite simply, they absolutely slayed it. When a band put their all into a performance, it really makes the show all the more rewarding to see – and by the second song, Matt had already climbed up onto the amp stacks at the side of the stage to perform from there! There was some great examples of crowd participation as well, with gig-goers being commanded to shout lines back at the band and jump up and down, the latter of which wound up descending into a mosh pit!
The set ended chaotically, with Kris climbing up onto the amp stack and Matt jumping from the stage into the crowd to start a mosh pit, demanding that everyone in the room came at him to kick the shit out of him! To say Idiom really outdid themselves at this show is an understatement and this band is truly a force to be reckoned with.
9/10
