I was quite annoyed when I heard that the show had been moved to the ‘Oude Zaal’ in the Melkweg, the smallest room of this venue. I expected an overcrowded room and no space for a mosh with a line-up consisting of The Ghost Inside, Caliban, The Devil Wears Prada, I Killed The Prom Queen and Breakdown Of Sanity.

The venue was already quite full when Breakdown Of Sanity started playing, which made sense: people usually flutter in during the evening, but this band doesn’t often play in The Netherlands. Many people came here because they wanted to see the band play live at last, others came to enjoy the whole evening and didn’t come for one band only. The band itself played tight and the first moshpit started during the first song and didn’t stop throughout their whole set. A very good opening act for quite a long evening. When the band left after a very short set, they could count on many people screaming “We want more!”.

After the bar had been set quite high it was time for I Killed The Prom Queen. The band played okay, but it could have been a bit better. Compared to the last time the band stood in the same venue, there was a lack of energy and the vocals weren’t spot on either. Quite some people left the venue to grab a bite during this band, and most people who stayed in were listening and chatting at the same time. Not the best performance the band has ever delivered, but on the other hand, it could have been a lot worse.

My curiosity finally came to an end when The Devil Wears Prada took over the stage. I was curious because I’d seen this band quite some times and although they can put on a good show, they seemed to have forgotten how to do this during the last two/three years. The band itself didn’t play that bad. In fact, they were quite good. The energy of the band, on the other hand, wasn’t that high, and the vocals were actually rather terrible once again. During their second to last song, “Danger:Wildmen”, I’d had enough. I wanted my opinion on these songs to remain positive, so I walked out and tried to convince myself that this band has still got it, which was really difficult to do.

After an even bigger let-down it was time for one of my favourite bands in this line-up: Caliban. This German metalcore band has shown varying performances in the past. Today was probably the best performance I’ve seen by the band. The screams were amazing and the cleans seemed to be better than ever before as well. There was a lot of moshing and some stagediving arose, something that couldn’t have been done in the bigger room of this venue. Therefore, it was brilliant that they had to play in the ‘Oude Zaal’. The level of energy of both the crowd and the band was high and Caliban even invited the lead vocalist of Breakdown Of Sanity to perform some guest vocals on “We Are The Many”, which were quite good as well. The only pity during this performance was that the band only played songs from the last two albums. For those who don’t know: the band has already released nine full-length albums. Therefore, many of their more well-known hits weren’t played and some fans were quite disappointed about that. Nevertheless, as stated before, this was one of their best performances ever, and this band was a worthy co-headliner on this tour.

The bar had been set even higher now, but The Ghost Inside started with two of their best known songs, “Engine 45” and “Unspoken”. Of course, the crowd went totally insane and the moshpit kept on going from the very first note. The large amount of stage divers during their set was also amazing. Many sing-a-longs were shouted by the crowd during this show, and the band really loved it. The band played quite tight and really enjoyed the energy in the room. The setlist consisted of at least one song from every record, but most songs came from their latest record “Get What You Give”. Time flew and it felt like much too early when the band left the stage, but of course the band came back for an encore. During the encore, “Dark Horse”, the vocalist invited everyone on stage. Because almost half of the crowd stood on the stage during this whole song it was rather difficult for the band to continue playing. Nevertheless, Jonathan kept singing while everyone stood around him, and he kept switching his attention between the crowd on stage and the crowd that was left on the floor. After this song he jumped off the stage to greet everyone, take a few pictures, and give some high fives and hugs.

It was a great edition of the Impericon Progression Tour, which had some let-downs, but many superb things as well. I certainly hope that both this tour and many of these bands will come to The Netherlands more often. Fortunately, it won’t take too long for tonight’s headliner to come back, as The Ghost Inside will support Asking Alexandria on their tour, which will arrive at the Melkweg on October 7^th.