Tonight, the Manchester Academy witnessed the second night of The Resurrection Tour featuring co-headliners Asking Alexandria and Black Veil Brides with support from Germany’s To the Rats and Wolves.
With a door opening time of 7:30pm and two mighty names ahead of them To the Rats and Wolves kicked off their set a mere 10 minutes after the crowds started making their way in which, due to current security checks at the venue, meant that unfortunately the start of the band’s set was played to an almost empty venue. The set featured songs such as “Young. Used. Wasted”, “Blackout”, “Wild at Heart” and “Suburban Romance” which allowed the band to showcase their unusual but impressive mix of metal and trance along with some distinctive vocals from both Dixi Wu and Nico Sallach.
The whole band had brilliant energy and interacted with the crowd that grew during the set. The only time the pace slowed during the set was when Wu took a moment to tie his shoelace before diving straight back onto the podium and picking up where he left off. The band squeezed one final song into their short set which was the impressive “Anywhere For You”.
After what seemed like an eternity of ear-piercing speaker feedback and a pulsing red light on stage the Asking Alexandria band members appeared. From the intro to the first song it was instantly recognisable to all the fans in the crowd as being the band’s most recent single “Into The Fire” which received a huge cheer and singing along throughout. In complete contrast to the first song, which features much more clean vocals from lead vocalist Danny Worsnop, the second song of the night “Killing You” was a much heavier number featuring the screaming that Asking Alexandria are well known for… and this took the energy in the room to a whole new level.
The energy from the crowd was more than matched by all band members through the next couple of songs. When the band began to play “The Final Episode” the perfectly timed scream of “Oh my god” from the crowd was so powerful it was not only heard but felt. After a few more full-throttle metalcore songs the pace was slowed with an acoustic version of “Someone, Somewhere” which Worsnop dedicated to all the military personnel away from home who are helping to keep us all safe. The rhythmic clapping of the crowd and singing along during the final chorus shows they definitely approved of these stripped back version of the original song.
The crowd were then asked if it was OK if the band could play “a bunch of new stuff” which gave the masses the opportunity to hear three songs off the bands 2017 self-titled album. The main part of the set finished with “A Prophecy” followed by a brief encore of “Moving On” and “The Death of Me”. Black Veil Brides certainly had their work to cut out to match the performance from Asking Alexandria.
After a roughly four-year break, Black Veil Brides returned in 2018 with the brand-new album Vale and the tour to go with it. Tonight, it was time to show the Manchester crowd they can still rock. When the lights dropped and band members Ashley Purdy, Jinxx, Jake Pitts and CC took to the stage anticipation was high and when vocalist Andy Biersack joined his bandmates there was an almighty high-pitched scream from every female in the audience.
The evening kicked off with a couple of the band’s back catalogue hits with “Faithless” and “Coffin” which were true crowd pleasers. Up next was one of the band’s newest songs “Wake Up” which having only been released on social media two weeks ago, already appears to be a fan favourite and looks set to be a staple of Black Veil Brides set lists for many years to come. Biersack appeared to have the crowd eating out the palm of his hand, cheering and clapping on command throughout “I Am Bulletproof” and “Rebel Love Song” which received by far the loudest applauses of the night so far.
“When They Call My Name” was the first slower song of the set and featured video footage of the band’s early years on the huge screen behind them throughout the song. “Shadows Die” which was up next gave Jinxx the chance to show off his skills on the violin. It was at this point that Biersack took a moment to give a shout out to the other bands that have played earlier in the evening and asked the audience to take part in a competition to be the loudest crowd of the tour so far. This of course led to a huge roar and when the band proceeded to sing “Lost It All” the crowd sounded like a 2600 strong choir singing the line “I believe that we all fall down, sometimes” at the top of their lungs.
The second half of the set included “The Legacy” during which Biersack jokingly chased a roadie who had just collected a stray piece of equipment off stage. This was followed by “Wretched and Divine” and “Knives and Pens” one of the band’s earliest hits finished the main set.
After a short time off stage, presumably due to the fast approaching curfew, the band returned to the stage for the encore which began with “Perfect Weapon” and was followed by the anthemic “Fallen Angels” which sent the crowd a little crazy as soon as the opening words “Scream, shout, we are the fallen angels” were sung. The final song of the night was “In The End”, the only item left in the Black Veil Brides arsenal that had enough power to top the previous song and was a fitting closing to the show.
Two things are clear from tonight’s show. The first is that the band’s army of loyal fans certainly hasn’t dwindled during their break and the second that Black Veil Brides are truly resurrected.
Photos by Jack Barker Photography
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