Killswitch Dive Into Newcastle

You struggle to lift a fat guy to help him crowd surf. You get pushed to the floor. The fat guy falls on you and your shoe breaks. You don’t care. Killswitch Engage are playing.

The Taste of Chaos Tour kicks off with Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, and things get off to the best possible start. Their blend of catchy southern riffs and crunchy metalcore gels well with the crowd and they get a healthy response from everybody. Front man Dallas Taylor screams and sings the part, looking and sounding like the angriest hippy in the world. But he moves and shakes with the style of a wannabe pop princess.

Next up are Every Time I Die, and possible the worst way to follow on from Maylene. On record they are average at best, on stage they are just poor. They have the energy, but lack any, tunefulness, any style or swagger, any rapport with the crowd. They’re well known for their long ironic song titles, unfortunately ‘I’m angry at nothing and shop at Topman’ wasn’t one of them. And demanding everyone crowd surfs when you get kicked out the venue for it (two people did) is the final failure of a sub-par set.

In Flames are veterans. They play like it could be their headlining set; the crowd eat out of their hands. The older songs from ‘The Jester Race’ and ‘Whoracle’ are far more inspiring than the newer material. With the exception of the epic ‘Take This Life.’ But the set as a whole is just as strong as any other band right now. The only drawback is the muted sound.

And Finally Killswitch Engage hit the stage. Donning white tuxedo t-shirts, and in the case of Adam D, a cape, they know what the fans want. And that’s big sing along choruses. In the old days these were delivered under a barrage of time changes, huge riffs and brutal vocals. Nowadays they seem to be stuck in a rut; the new songs have the KsE™ sound but lack the desire of the early material. The muddy sound doesn’t help, front man Howard Jones often being drowned out by the band or the crowd.

But none of this really matters. They still rock, fill every inch of the stage and get the crowd chanting every word.

The floor shakes to the crowd’s jumps during ‘Holy Diver.’ You leave tired. You leave sweaty and you leave bruised. It was good. Killswitch played.