The Imperial Never Say Die! Tour 2010: Parkway Drive + Comeback Kid + Bleeding Through + Emmure + Your Demise + War From A Harlot’s Mouth + We Came As Romans @ Birmingham Academy, 31st October 2010

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It’s All Hallows’ Eve, and a night of music is waiting for me at the Academy. The Imperial Never Say Die! Tour 2010 features 7 bands, and at £16 a ticket, is amazing value for money! The doors opened at 5pm, and the curfew is 11pm. It’s going to be a long night…

Typically for me, I’ve managed to miss post-hardcore band We Came As Romans, who hail from Troy, Michigan. Sorry!

I walk in as War From A Harlot’s Mouth hit the stage (6:30pm), and the venue is packed. The balcony isn’t open, but the ground floor is heaving, which is great for the bands lower down the bill – their worst nightmare must be walking out on stage to perform and only seeing a handful of people. Well done Birmingham!

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WFAHM, a five-piece from Berlin, Germany, play a typical metalcore set, with songs that have slow and fast passages, and shouty vocals. The large crowd clap politely between songs, but don’t seem that impressed. They get a small circle pit going when vocalist Nico Webers (formally of The Ocean, who supported Dillinger Escape Plan only three nights ago, fact fans) comes off the stage, stands against the barriers holding the crowd back, and asks them to.

Your Demise, from St. Albans, arrive on stage at 7pm, and the venue cheers as the lights go down. There’s a lot of support here tonight for the most local band of the tour, who play hardcore, but with slower moments. One of the big problems with a multi-band bill is the sound quality usually suffers for the bands lower down the bill. Tonight, whilst standing under the balcony, the sound is very muddy, which is really bad when any band starts playing quickly, although doesn’t sound too bad during the slower moments. The band appear to be having a great time, though, with all members bouncing around the stage. The obligatory circle pit is requested and received, and vocalist Ed McRae enjoys a crowd surf during their last track.

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Emmure, from New Fairfield, Connecticut, hit the stage at 7:45pm, and the night takes a turn towards the dark side. Their style of deathcore, but with a groove, seems to be a favourite with the crowd, who shout out the lyrics, before being blasted with huge amounts of sub-bass. As their music never gets too thrashy, and the fact that they play a bit deeper than the other bands, the muddiness of the sounds seems to help them, and they sound pretty good. During their last track, vocalist Frankie Palmeri asks the crowd to pack in to the front, and then asks for everyone to climb over the person in front of them, therefore inciting a mass attack of crowd surfing. Security down the front did a great job getting everyone safely down on to the ground. Emmure were definitely a highlight for me – a band that I’d never heard of made a big impression on me.

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Bleeding Through, from Orange County, Florida, come on stage at 8:30pm, and just seem to be a bit generic – typical songs have slow and fast passages, and shouty vocals. They have a keyboard player, which is a bit different, and not only is she easy on the eye, but she head bangs like a possessed demon. Yet again, a circle pit is requested and received… The whole evening is beginning to turn a tad generic now – circle pits, crowd surfing and muddy sound.

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Comeback Kid, hailing from Winnipeg, Canada, walk on stage at 9:15pm to the sounds of With A Little Help From My Friends – the good version by Joe Cocker, and although this hardcore band is full of energy, unfortunately the crowd isn’t – I think it may be the fact that they’re just a pure hardcore band, with no fancy twists in their sound. A large number of the crowd take this opportunity to sit down and rest their legs before the headliners arrive.

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Finally, at 10:10pm, our headliner Parkway Drive hit the stage and add a fifth country to tonights band map. Hailing from Australia (specifically Byron Bay, New South Wales), and still suffering from jet lag, they’re here to tear the UK a new “one”, and what’s left of tonight’s crowd will help them. It appears that there have been Sunday night transport issues, which mean that members of the crowd have to leave before PD even hit the stage. The crowd difinately seems lighter than for any other band, but only around the edges of the venue.

The lights go down, and the crowd go mental, and PD walk on stage to set opener “Samsara” and immediately vocalist Winston McCall has the biggest grin on his face – he seems genuinely happy to be here in front of all these people. Their set runs through tracks new (Samsara, Unrest and Sleepwalker are all taken from this years album “Deep Blue”) and old (Idols & Anchors, The Siren’s Song and Dead Man’s Chest from 2007’s “Horizons”), until McCall calls a halt to proceedings to introduce us to “The Ball Of Jeff” – a rugby ball is thrown into the crowd, and whoever can get it to the mixing desk wins £50. Sounds simple. Good luck with that!

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Strangely, for a band with only enough time for a 50 minute set, they take an interlude for a couple of minutes for a bit of set dressing. I assume a fight has just kicked off around me, when I then realise that it’s the game of “Ball Of Jeff” that’s still going on – Aussies always have to introduce a competitive nature into the most innocent of pastimes… The lights come back up, and they have a nice sea and sky backdrop and palm trees adorning the stage! During the next track “Home Is For The Heartless”, beach balls are thrown into the crowd to help with the beach feel. This is only topped by throwing a rubber dingy into the crowd for someone to “sail” over the crowd in during “Romance Is Dead”, although the sailing is cut short when a security guy grabs the boat out of the crowd midway through the track – damn those health and safety laws.

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They leave the stage at about 10:55, but return quickly to perform crowd favourite “Carrion”, which the crowd shout all the lyrics to, which in turn makes the grin on McCall’s face even wider than before! They close their set with “Boneyards”, which starts the final circle pit of the night in the crowd, and the first of the night on stage when axe-men Jeff Ling, Jia O’Connor and Luke Kilpatrick run around in a circle whilst playing their instruments.

Their set ends, the lights come up, and finally I can see what the crowd wore for Hallowe’en. Standing just in front of me were two Stay Puft Marshmallow Men, a gaggle of Zombies, and a sexy Red Riding Hood…

Parkway Drive Set List:
Samsara*
Unrest*
Idols & Anchors**
The Siren’s Song**
Sleepwalker*
Dead Man’s Chest**
Deliver Me*
The Cruise****
Home Is For The Heartless*
Guns For Show, Knives For A Pro***
Romance Is Dead***
Set To Destroy*

Encore:
Carrion**
Boneyards**

2010’s “Deep Blue”
** 2007’s “Horizons”
*** 2005’s “Killing With A Smile”
**** 2004’s “Don’t Close Your Eyes”

Review – Tony Hackett
Photos – Steve Gerrard

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4 thoughts on “The Imperial Never Say Die! Tour 2010: Parkway Drive + Comeback Kid + Bleeding Through + Emmure + Your Demise + War From A Harlot’s Mouth + We Came As Romans @ Birmingham Academy, 31st October 2010

  1. Andy – I looked it up on this internet thing. Lots of people call it “Ball Of Jeff”. It makes a lot of sense – it sounds like “Wall Of Death”, and there’s a guy called Jeff in the band…

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