We arrived just a little too late to see the first part of the local band Note to Amy, who played a fair mix of pop-rock mixed with some pop-punk/punk elements. Nothing to get really excited about but they managed to settle a very decent performance where especially the singing, by a bearded Bad Religion shirt wearing frontman, really stood out. The sound was also pretty good at this point but somehow got only worse later on when the other bands played. Props to the drummer for wearing a Nasum shirt by the way! At Metalrage, we all love a little diversity don’t we?

 

I was pissed off at Cancer Bats for doing so many UK only tours and not touring the mainland of Europe lately. They just went on tour with Billy Talent and Silverstein and almost skipped the Netherlands once again, but luckily W2 managed to book only Cancer Bats and Silverstein for tonight’s show as a nice last day of the tour. Bigup! The bats opened with ‘Pneumonia Hawk’ from their debut album, a song I haven’t seen on their playlist for a while. I thought the crowd didn’t seem to care much, but at the middle of the song a huge pit emerged that kept on going throughout the set, as well as quite a few sing-a-longs and stagedives. Just how we like it! Cancer Bats played a great set containing all classics such as ‘Pray For Darkness’, ‘Sorcerers’, ‘Shillelagh’, ‘Regret’, ‘Lucifer’s Rocking Chair’, ‘Smiling Politely’, ‘Let It Pour’ and of course their hit ‘Hail Destroyer’. With a brand new album coming up early next year, they gave us an impression of this by playing a brand new song I hadn’t heard before as well as their cover of the Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ that will be featured on the new album too. Unfortunately the sound was not too good during the set, but gave it a nice crusty sound on the other hand though. Overall a damn good show and I hope to see them again soon when the new album is out!

 

As soon as Cancer Bats finished their set, the hardcore kids and metalheads crawled back to the back of the venue to make some room for a much younger looking crowd. I’ve seen Silverstein before at Belgium’s Groezrock festival and they gave a tight show there, so I was wondering what they would come up with this time. The band opened with ‘A Great Fire’ from their brand new album Shipwreck in the Sand and got most of the crowd singing along from the first moment. The sound at this point was absolutely awful and when the sound started to get better during songs such as ‘Smile In Your Sleep’, ‘I Am The Arsonist’, ‘Always and Never’ and ‘Broken Stars’, the singing started to get uglier every single second. First of all the clean singing parts, which is the part were the band leans on the most, was completely out of tone most of the time the screams were done by the same vocalist who, after all these years, still doesn’t know how to sing properly through a microphone when switching between screams and clean singing. He constantly held the microphone a bit back when screaming which made it sound awful. Highlight of the evening was when a bit of a plump guy perfectly timed a completely failing stagedive during the line ‘Why am I scared, I won’t be able to get up when I fall’ in the track ‘Broken Stars’. The kids went nuts on Silverstein’s performance though, so after all they did a good job, quantity wise that is. Somewhere in the middle of the set we decided to head home with a great set of the Cancer Bats and a bit of a letdown from Silverstein in mind.