Still in support of their latest album The Damned, The Shamed, Terror stopped by in Haarlem on this tour as well. Last year's tour with Ignite was scheduled in the big room but this evening had been moved to the small room last minute. I didn’t mind, as the last hardcore show in the small room with Comeback Kid in April was a big success! A sold out, completely packed venue resulted in an intense Sunday night experience.
Baltimore’s Trapped Under Ice had the chance to kick off the evening with some energetic straight-to-your-face hardcore. Where the band failed to convince me on CD, this performance was outstanding. The crowd’s reaction for an opening act was amazing as well. Sing-alongs, stage dives and some proper moshing. The band played a few new songs from their upcoming full-length as well, and where people are mostly standing still on new tracks they don’t know, the crowd went completely nuts on the little playtime the band had. I consider checking those records out again!
After joining the Hell on Earth tour with Walls of Jericho headlining last year, Stick To Your Guns from Orange County had the chance to join Terror for a second European trip. Not surprising, as Terror’s front man Scott Vogel joined the band for some guest vocals on the latest album Comes From The Heart. It was hard to top the outstanding performance of the band playing before them, and indeed these guys couldn’t convince me. I do like this band on CD but the performance was missing something. Especially the clean vocals on tracks such as 'Enough Is Enough' and ‘Impact’ sounded very dull. Even though the band couldn’t stop thanking the crowd and trying to get some movement, the overall performance just wasn’t good enough to top Trapped Under Ice’s show or match hardcore standards. It was clear the people who did like the band were all waiting for a sing-along on the last track 'This Is More', but the band certainly left me, along with the crowd, with mixed feelings.
Next up, “all the way” from Holland, was Born From Pain ready to enter the stage. Singer Rob suffered from a bad eye infection during the tour so David Wood, singer of Down To Nothing and bass player in Terror took over the vocal duties for a while. I was actually looking forward to hear him play with Born From Pain but Rob just recovered from the infection and was back on stage to join the band again. I think the problem with this band is that I’ve seen them way too many times after the release of the Survival album and the change of singer. The same intro, visuals and set list as the past year or so made it a not very special performance for me. Rob constantly shouting “Come On Haarlem!” and the same speeches about alternative media made it actually rather annoying. The crowd really enjoyed it though, and I must say that this band is really good at what they do. But seeing them live for the fourth time in a really short time since the release of the last album doesn’t do me any good. Big respect for what they do though!
Kick off with 'Lowest of the Low' and you can’t go wrong anymore. Terror from Los Angeles proved once again to be one of the best pissed off hardcore bands of the past years. Forty minutes, no encore, short speeches and just one hell of a party with a set list covering tracks of all their full-length albums. From older tracks such as 'Push It Away', 'One With The Underdogs', 'Spit My Rage', 'Last of the Diehards' and my personal favorite 'Always The Hard Way' to tracks from the new album like 'Betrayer' and 'Voice of the Damned', this band knows how to turn a crowd into complete madness. Same as with Trapped Under Ice’s performance, the crowd turned into a complete chaos of sing-alongs, dives and people and band members climbing on stage to take over Scott’s vocal duties for a few lines. The forty minutes were over before I knew it, and even though this was the fifth time I’ve witnessed this band live, I can’t wait to see them again. Outstanding show!