Novelists started off this night and raised the energy level to 100 straight from the start. They brought progressive metalcore form France and Germany. This show was the first show for singer Tobias Rische. He wasn’t able to attend the first shows in the UK on this tour, and he had Kubrick sing his lines for him. The band showed a lot of respect for Kubrick as well as for the crowd. While Tobias was saying his thanks, both guitarists Florestan Durand and Pierre Danel took their time and sat on the front of the stage.

The lights were mostly behind the band, so either you can say it gave a cool look, to only see the outlines of the band and a light show behind them, or you can say that you could only see shadow people on stage. For me, it was the latter. I personally would have enjoyed to see more of the band instead of their outlines. Novelists only got to play about nine songs, with most of the setlist representing their latest album ‘Deja Vu’ that was released on September 2, 2022. They started with ‘Terrorist’, and closed with ‘Lost Cause’, which is also the closing track of the album. And even though it was only the first band of the night, the room was moving! Moshpits and walls of death, if you can get people to do that that early in the night, you are a good performer and a good band. 

Novelists was asked to join Bury Tomorrow and August Burns Red last minute to join them on tour. And I’m very happy they did. After the show, the band went to the merch stand to talk to the fans and sign CDs and t-shirts.

Bury Tomorrow put everything in a show that a fan, or even somebody that doesn’t know the band, wants from a concert. Honestly, it was so much fun. Lead singer Daniel Winter-Bates didn’t want to sound cheesy by saying thank you all the time, and he didn’t sound cheesy, but he did say thank you all the time. But it came from the bottom of his heart and the crowd noticed. Dan said he wanted us to have a good show that was worth our money, since it’s not easy right now with everything being so expensive. Let’s just say he kept his word.

This night we moshed, we did wall of deaths, we crowdsurfed, we did it all. Dan mentioned Bury Tomorrow playing Graspop a couple of times already and he said there were always very large circle pits, not like this baby circle pit he was seeing this night in the AB. He clarified that he meant that the pit was small, not that he thought that a bunch of babies were running around in a pit, because that would be weird of course. Everybody got pushed to the side and the whole room was one big circle pit. He also asked us to hook our arms into the person standing next to you, whether we knew them or not, and then move around from the front to the back, from the left to the right. It connected the crowd and it was so much fun.

Bury Tomorrow gave us a mix from their new songs from their latest albums like Cannibal (Choke, Cannibal) released in 2020 and Black Flame released in 2018 (Black Flame, The Age). And their older songs like Earthbound and Cemetery, from their album Earthbound released in 2016. Bury Tomorrow brought melodic metalcore, and the moments the melodies were aligned were a great moment for the whole room to bounce all together. Absolutely a lovely show. Their seventh album ‘The Seventh Sun’ is coming out on March 31, 2023. We got to hear ‘Abandon Us’ from that album live. I can already tell you, you won’t be disappointed. You can pre-order the album here. 

August Burns Red used Chop Suey by System of a Down as the opening song. The original started playing, and halfway through the band played the rest of the song. That was a very cool opening of the show. The lights that they used were right behind the band and straight into our faces. Not a problem if that happens every once in a while, but the whole show those lights were beaming and flashing straight into our eyes. It was either closing your eyes, or looking down that worked, because there was no way you could stare straight into that for a full hour. That made that we really couldn’t see the show as well as we would’ve liked to.

The music was still amazing though. Lead singer Jake Luhrs talked about his first album with August Burns Red and how that changed his life. He then proceeded to play Composure from the Messengers album. August Burns Red has more hardcore elements into their music, which makes it so there are less melodies to jump together to. They brought low tuned guitars and slower beats to bang our heads to, topped off with fast guitar solos. Their setlist was a nice journey throughout their albums. There were songs form latest album Guardians (Defender and Paramount), they went all the way back to their breakthrough album Messengers and played Composure. August Burns Red also went back to Constellations, which was released in 2009 (Marianas Trench, Meddler, White Washed). They played Ghosts from Found in Far Away Places, released in 2015 and Invisible Enemy and King of Sorrow from Phantom Anthem, released in 2017. A band can never play all of their songs live in one show, but I like it when a band tries to give love to newer and older songs. August Burns Red did exactly that.

Guitar player John Benjamin Brubaker and drummer Matt Greiner came to say hi to the people after the show. Both very nice people and again, very grateful for us coming. A few fun facts; John played this whole show on flip-flops, and Jake‘s pink stripes on his Adidas shoes matched the color of bass player Dustin Davidsons picks.

August Burns Red is going to release a new album called Death Below. It will be in stores on march 24, 2023. But you can already pre-order it from their website.