[Full sets of photos from this gig via the following links: The Black Dahlia Murder / Cannibal Corpse / DevilDriver]
Quite the night for gigs in Glasgow, once again, with three big names to choose from. Wednesday 13 was Hallowe’en-ing up the Cathouse as Dan Reed rocked out in the ABC2. I’d picked up tickets, though, for the heavier of the concert upstairs from Mr Reed in the main hall of the ABC.
For once there was an 11pm curfew, but with two headliners there was still an early door time of 6pm that we couldn’t quite manage. As a result we missed openers Hour of Penance. My apologies, I’m sure they were great.
One thing that jumped out was the size of the crowd. Noticeably larger than when Cannibal Corpse came to town almost exactly a year ago. Whether this was due to the bill, or better advertising or some other factor I don’t know. Regardless, a big audience was in place for three very good bands to entertain the shit out of them.
First up, and giving us just enough time to grab a pint, were The Black Dahlia Murder. A band I’ve been hearing about for some but had never actually heard anything by. This didn’t lessen their impact as Trevor Strnad wasted no time demanding the crowd make some noise, go mental and start a huge circle pit.
Despite being “support” on this tour, TBDM had a huge number of fans in the audience which led to a fantastic set. Time flew by as they chucked out a barrage of heavy riffage, working the crowd into a frenzy.
The job of a support act is to warm the crowd up for the main act and there’s no denying that The Black Dahlia Murder did just that. Hell, on any other night they would have been a more than satisfying headline act in their own right. I think the only people glad to see them leave the stage were the security who were being hugely overworked towards the end of the set with a veritable barrage of crowd-surfers.
Oh, they did mention they’d be back in September so keep an eye out for tickets going on sale.
But next up were the kings of zombie grind, Cannibal Corpse. Again, wasting no time (you’d think the bands were on a schedule) they ploughed a bloody furrow through the ever-maddening crowd with track after track of gore-soaked metal. Thankfully bereft of the “technical difficulties” suffered last year, George and the boys managed over an hour of hot, sweaty, filthy violence.
tBDM‘s Trevor co-voiced one of the songs towards the end to celebrate the end of the tour. With just enough time spent to talk to the crowd and introduce the occasional track, the band left the entire audience battered and – in one guy’s case – very bloody. Just an accidental bash of heads and I saw him later in the evening absolutely fine bar a bit of cotton wool stuck to his face by one of the attending medics.
Finally, and deservedly in the “headlining” slot (in my opinion) were South California’s noisiest exports – DevilDriver. Playing just over an hour of material from their five albums, Dez (be-kilted for the evening) and the boys had the crowd belting the shit out of each other from start to finish.
They had the largest circle pit I’ve seen at the ABC, covering virtually the entire dance floor and it was ongoing for much of their set. Plenty of surfing, a great atmosphere and smiling faces all around.
The hour or so they had to fill passed by all too quickly. I think this is the third time I’ve seen them, not including festivals (Brisbane opening for Fear Factory and Glasgow opening for Machine Head being the other two), but finally seeing a full set was worth the wait.
In hindsight it’s still a shame I missed the horror metal show down the road, but this was definitely a night well spent. All three bands are worth catching live if you get the chance.
