Lost Society / Evil Invaders – Glasgow Audio

Evil Invaders
Evil Invaders (Photo credit: Iain Purdie)

[Photo sets: Evil Invaders / Lost Society]

Yes, I know there were two other bands on the bill (the UK’s Shrapnel and German legends Destruction), but I didn’t get to see their full sets so I’m leaving those reviews in the capable hands of Sean. They should be joining this one shortly.

Evil Invaders are a young band from Belgium, together since 2012 with one EP under their belts and an album due out in February 2015. They’re also the reason I missed half of Shrapnel’s set as I was enjoying their hospitality on the tour bus (yay, Jupiler!) in exchange for an interview which will be posted up later this afternoon. I featured them as Band of the Day back in 2013 and was impressed with their old-school feel, complete with tinny, echoey sound.

Tonight in Glasgow, they wholly succeeded in taking that tongue-in-cheek old-school thrash ethos and ramping it up tenfold in front of a decent sized and energetic crowd. I’d say that Audio was roughly half full for them (compared to the crammed interior by the time Destruction came on), which isn’t bad for the openers on a 4-band bill. Even better that a handful down the front seemed to know the words, and a larger number were happy to join in with the fun despite most likely being newcomers to the band.

Hell, these guys could start a mosh pit in an empty room if they had to. All energy, all fun, speed/thrash metal with the self-confidence to just damn well get out there and tell the crowd what to do. Better still, the crowd listened.

By the time their set was drawing to a close, bassist Nico was on the dancefloor (still with his guitar) showing people where to stand as the final song built to a crashing conclusion.

Evil Invaders just didn’t let up for their too-short 30-minute set, reduced from the 45 minutes they had on the continent. As such, they were cut short partway through their last song, but they took it well as did the crowd. A shame to see them limited to only half an hour, but for them to play on would mean another band having to reduce their stage time.

With their debut album out at the end of February, I’m very much hoping they get the chance to head over here to promote it, preferably with a longer set. Great fun!

Lost Society
Lost Society (Photo credit: Iain Purdie)

Next up were Lost Society from Finland who are in a similar vein genre-wise to Evil Invaders, but a bit more established with two albums already released. Where they’re very similar indeed is in terms of live performance – every bit as good as the openers and ideal touring mates.

Again, we have a band that’s all about getting the crowd engaged and thrashing rather than just standing there watching the show. Leading  by example, the band are all over the place. Monitors are posed on, microphones are shared, heads are banged, raised legs are duck-walked under…

The obligatory “weird moment of the night” was reached during their set when a guy in an all-over red body-suit was dragged onto stage. I get the feeling he’s been stalking the band for a while, but it seems he’s resident to Glasgow. He ended up helping with the backing vocals for “Braindead Metalhead” before Samy rounded the evening off by diving headlong into the crowd.

Lost Society’s set flew by in a whirlwind and, again, are a band I hope to see passing this way sooner rather than later. Musically pretty good, and in terms of entertainment value they’re priceless.

Bear in mind, these were just the two opening bands with another two impressive sets to follow…

Evil Invaders: official | facebook | twitter | youtube | soundcloud | last.fm

Lost Society: facebook | twitter | youtube

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
trackback
October 12, 2014 3:43 PM

[…] managed to snag twenty minutes or so with these young Belgian upstarts after their set at Glasgow Audio. The whole band crammed round a table and fed me beer in a bid to make me feel welcome and more […]

trackback
October 15, 2014 11:34 PM

[…] this is the second part of the review. I [Mosh] covered the two opening acts. I missed a fair bit of Shrapnel as I was interviewing Evil Invaders and had to leave partway […]