Trivium is selling out most of the shows on their The Sin and the Sentence tour. Their show on April 15, 2018 in the Trix, Antwerp got sold out as well. That means 1100 people ready to scream their lungs out for them. And that was noticeable to say the least. Venom Prison from the UK and Power Trip form the US, bands both chosen by Trivium’s lead singer Matt Heafy, warmed us up with all they’ve got. Read and watch what happened next.
The night started of with Venom Prison. Pure death metal infused with hardcore and the energetic singer Larissa Stupar head banging around the stage. Her energy didn’t really reach the crowd enough though. People were mostly just standing there. A small circle pit when asked for, but nothing more than a few head banging people. They deserved some more love, as the quality of the music was good. But for some reason, their way of pumping up the crowd didn’t quite come through.
More thrash metal with hardcore influences plus even more energy with lead singer Riley Gale making crazy jumps all over the stage, using the drum platform as a trampoline. They got the crowd moving some more. Straightforward, funny, true and honest. Riley said he wrote a song about the Terminator movie. He asked us to move our head and put our ‘elevens’ in the air. We had to prove that we were no robots, but living human beings with a will of our own. But then again, we did exactly as he said. So, did we really prove we are no robots? Or are we?
It was definitely noticeable that everybody, or at least most of the people, came for Trivium. The crowd was wild and bounced around like crazy. Not that this doesn’t happen at all the Trivium shows, but in a relatively small theater, it feels way more lively than at a huge open air show. Nevertheless, Trivium rules every show and gives every person what they want. It may sound weird, but Trivium is the only band where it feels like they are just as exited to see the crowd as the crowd is exited to see them. This creates a feeling of mutual respect. Combine this with all the band members communicating with the crowd and it creates one bomb of energy, almost euphoria.
As they are doing during The Sin and the Sentence tour, they start the show with ‘The Sin and the Sentence’, the first song of their latest album The Sin and the Sentence released on October 20, 2017. Our review of the album is available here.
Starting with a black stage and Iron Maiden’s ‘Run to the Hills’ playing to warm up the crowd, Trivium burst out the darkness with an amazing light show. The epicness started and didn’t stop until the last note.
Talking about pumping up the crowd, lead singer Matt Heafy came off the stage to play even closer to the crowd. He walked into the photo pit and stopped in the middle. The whole crowd moved to the center to get a close up view from him. Every time there was an instrumental part, the crowd sung along with the melody. Even some of the solos lead guitarist Corey Beaulieu played were sung along. This and all of the above, is part of the Trivium formula: Bang your head, move your body, sing along and having an awesome time.
Earlier, fans could vote for which songs Trivium was going to play live during the tour. I think Trivium made a perfect balance between their own choices and and the fans choices. Being on the Sin and the Sentence tour, Most of the songs came from that album: The Sin and the Sentence, Betrayer, Sever the Hand, Thrown Into the Fire, Heart From Your Hate and Beyond Oblivion. There were also some older songs from earlier albums like ‘Ascendency’ and ‘Pull Harder On the Strings of Your Martyr’ form their second album Ascendency and ‘Becoming the Dragon’ from their third album The Crusade.
And of course the Trivium classics like ‘Strife’ and ‘In Waves’ were on the setlist as well. Trivium always has a thing they do during ‘In Waves’. It’s always the last song of the show. Matt Heafy asks everybody to sit down, and jump up and down the moment the beat drops. The whole Trix sat down and everybody went crazy.
Full setlist:
The Sin and The Sentence
Throes of Perdition
Betrayer
Ascendancy
Sever the Hand
Inception of the End
Until the World Goes Cold
Becoming the Dragon
Thrown Into the Fire
Strife
Caustic Are the Ties That Bind
Heart From Your Hate
Beyond Oblivion
Shattering the Skies Above
Pull Harder On the Strings of Your Martyr
In Waves
To summarize this show: Wow, simply amazing. Loved it. I love to see Trivium live and I try to see them as often as possible. Too bad they didn’t come out for a talk afterwards, as bands who played the Trix sometimes do that. They did do meet and greets before the show, so that was very nice of them to do so. I also like that there are more bands to explore before the headliner. There are a lot of bands out there and it’s always nice to get in touch with stuff you haven’t heard before.
Overall it was an amazing evening, although it was clearly noticeable that most of the people came for Trivium. There weren’t as much people for Venom Prison and Power Trip and also people were just not participating as much with the other shows. A part of that is because of the bands motivation power, another part is with the crowd. It was very nice that all the bands gave a shout out to each other. That created a very brotherly feeling.
Matt Heafy said that Paris was the best crowd they had on the tour, but he never told us if we beat it or not. That’s not for me to decide. All I can say is that is was an awesome show with a loud, bouncing crowd. So Matt if you read this, did we beat Paris?
For more pictures by our photographer Gillian, go see our photo coverage here!
