25-08-2011 Comeback kid

Supports: Blood Command, Devil In Me, Living With Lions; Venue: De Kelder, Amersfoort (Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

De Kelder in Amersfoort gets ready for a new season opening and to start of heavy Comeback Kid and supports were invited to play.

The first act of the evening is Blood Command. They are coming from Norway and make quite a surprising start with a front woman giving her voice to this. May be a bit of a false start as the first notes didn’t hit ground and this resulted in some frowned eyebrows, but soon enough this lady got herself together and hit back. Though her voice is quite soft in the mix leaving the guitars being more upfront her. The audience seem to hold back a little more on their responses and maybe just because this was the first band of the night. Good start, the band was entertaining enough but maybe a bit lacking the strength of the vocals to really impress the audience which were mainly coming for either Devil In Me or Comeback Kid which are both a bit more aggressive.

Devil In Me was next and as said a bit more aggressive. Not only in the music, but also in their approach. They basically demanded everyone to get a little closer to the stage which eventually happened. These guys are from Portugal and come with an impressive vocalist who pushes his mark on the sound of the whole band stronger than you might imagine at first. The band is quite active on the stage and get the audience along to create a moshpit. As a minor thing to mention on the guys it must be that the songs in the end are a bit too much alike, a little variation would have been more exiting, but the audience seem to have a good time anyway.

The third band was less successful tonight. Living With Lions are from America and have recently released their album “Holy Shit”. Quite a lot of the audience was hanging in the bar area instead and during their performance more and more did so. They were also not as aggressive as the others and the main issue with them is not having a decent structure. It looks like everyone is shouting into a mic somewhen and the guitars are not really standing out, the riffs are too plain and the voices are too much covered with sugar for this evening. Nice try, but for this audience it just doesn’t work.

Hard core formation Comeback Kid definitely brought the people to the venue tonight. The Canadians have their sound built up with loads of rage and surprising breakdowns, making a lot of tension coming out of everyone. On the vocal side this band appears to be quite steady. This obviously sets them in advance tonight where two of the others weren’t that steady. And as much as the band is living to the music while playing, so is the audience. There is chaos all over in front of the stage and sometimes someone jumps on stage to quickly disappear into the audience again on the other side. Their album is out for about a year, which results in everyone knowing the lyrics and them shouting along. There is good atmosphere and tonight everyone have witnessed that Comeback Kid is a true live sensation. Worth to see when they come around!