Lacuna Coil have only just got their tour with Motionless In White and Devilment underway, but if the rest of the show’s tours are anything like the Manchester date, fans will be in for a treat.
One of the other bands of Dani Filth, Devilment (8/10), may not have been the most obvious choice for opening up proceedings, but they absolutely annihilated the stage of the Ritz. You could see how utterly into the music the band was as they blitzed through an almighty 30 minute set, and it was absolutely incredible to witness. The way the band moved was impressive and they made good use of keyboardist Lauren’s clean vocals on a few occasions, which really complemented the music well – but of course Dani’s tremendous shrieks made the music all the more special. It truly is a joy to witness a band as together as Devilment were and they filled the stage spectacularly – this band absolutely nailed it and it was a shame that perhaps the crowd wasn’t as into them as they could have been!
Up next was Motionless In White (7/10), and whilst I have to admit that their music is not exactly to my tastes, they did put on a good show. It certainly helped that the crowd was really into them and they fed off the band’s every move, which in turn caused them to thrive onstage. The atmosphere in the room was great, with their singer commenting it was the best show of the tour far and that they were going to be hard pressed to beat it. The band sounded very tight and together, and the overall quality was good. Sure, you may not find me decked out head to toe in Motionless In White merch any time soon, but even I can quite readily admit that they excelled themselves onstage in Manchester.
Finally it was time for headliners Lacuna Coil (8/10) to take to the stage and they opened with Trip The Darkness, which felt like a bit of a strange choice of opening track in all honesty – whilst it is a good song and a powerful opener, it may have made a little more sense for them to kick things off with a new song to show off their brand new album Broken Crown Halo.
The band’s new drummer Ryan fit in incredibly well; he was constantly smiling and putting his all into his performance, and he gave a new spin on some of the songs and his smile was so infectious that you’d have been hard pressed not to want to grin along with him. Their stand in bassist Daniel was great too – Marco was unable to make the tour because of health problems – and the whole band moved as a unit, and like they’d always been playing in this formation – and a band that is quickly able to adjust like Lacuna Coil is certainly one you shouldn’t mess with!
Something that was a bit of a shame was that they didn’t seem to get quite as strong of a response as Motionless In White got, although when they came back onstage for an encore they were greeted by a roar of cheers, but at times it seemed that the crowd had used up all their energy on the band prior.
Ending the show with red and black balloons being thrown into the crowd, it went down an absolute treat, and as the closing chords to Our Truth rang out, it has to be said that everybody in the room left as very satisfied customers!
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Read our review of Broken Crown Halo here.
