»10th November 2006
Unholy Alliance Chapter II
On Friday 3rd November I went to see the Unholy Alliance Chapter II tour at the Manchester Arena. The line up was (in order of appearance) Thine Eyes Bleed, Children of Bodom, Lamb of God, In Flames and Slayer. It goes without saying that this was a completely awesome event. I went to this concert with Stewart and JK and we all had a super fun time.
Now I'm going to try and recollect as much stuff about the day as I can. I didn't bring a camera to the event so I'm going to be using photos I have lying around in My Pictures folder from Google, the photos which Stewart took with his camera (thanks, Stew) and Paint pictures of how I remember the event, (which as all people who enjoy Lost Highway will know) which might not necessarily be how it happened.
Not sure which band this was, but it demonstrates the standard pose for a guitarist at Unholy Alliance.
Getting from Leeds to the Manchester Arena
Before we could get to the gig, we had to all meet up, something which proved surprisingly difficult. JK was going to come over to Leeds first, and as usual, JK didn't have his bloody phone on. After finding out JK was definitely in Leeds, some confusion arose over where we were meeting up. Whilst I waited at the town hall, becoming increasingly unsure of whether my understanding of the location of the town hall was radically different to everyone else, JK got lost in Leeds, first going to the train station, then turning his phone on for a brief enough period for me to send a call asking what the hell was going on. I was stood outside the Town Hall on the steps for like forty five minutes, enough time to listen to South of Heaven and get really cold. Once JK finally got to the Town Hall, after a short long detour seemingly via the Headrow, Stewart met up with us and we set off to the train station. The plan to go back to the flat after meeting up at the town hall had been abandoned now, meaning I didn't have my awesome new boots on which would give me a good inch or so in height, all the more important for getting a good view.
I hoped to improve over the NIN gig this time in several ways, firstly it sucked that some fat middle aged guy was in the way of my view of the stage at NIN, so height gain was the order of the day. Secondly, I hoped to get to the gig hopefully before it started this time, which meant setting off for the train station at about 3:00 was not setting off with a shit load of time to get us there before doors at five.
Getting train tickets was nice and painless, even finding the platform wasn't hard, though we still missed the earlier train, which sucked. However, we were getting hungry, so it was time to find food now we had about half an hour until the next train arrived. Pumpkin coffee shop, bizarre name, does nice cheeseburgers, they employ clearly white staff who have middle eastern names- very strange. After excessively hot cheeseburgers we waited for the train. A train arrived, we weren't very sure if it was ours or not. What followed was some great detective work.
"Those guys getting on the train have black t-shirts on, they're probably off to see Slayer."
"Yep, one has a Pantera t-shirt, the other has a Slayer t-shirt and I think I can see a Metallica t-shirt too, that's the right train."
The train took ages getting to Manchester, looks like we got a slow one, it managed to get to Manchester via Halifax and an assortment of other stereotypically northern towns, with hills and mills. Further seeking to improve on previous gig related disasters, Icon of Coil in this case, once we got into the train station it was time to check where and when our train back was. Being stuck in Sheffield Interchange sucked really fucking hard. Being stuck in Manchester with a bunch of Slayer fans could be far worse. In checking out when the last train was we lost the massive gang of people in black t-shirts and urban camouflage shorts. We were wondering for about ten seconds where the arena was until we spotted some stairs that lead up to the arena. Great, no chances of getting lost in Manchester again (see NIN concert, again). I was impressed with the efficiency of the touts, going up the stairs to the arena one of them took my spare ticket from me for the extortionately low sum of £10. Still, I had rid of that fucking ticket.
Once we were into Arena, after getting away from the black guy who wanted money for tickets or something, it was time to merch up. It was a good job I ran out of disposable income recently, because that was all that stopped me getting a Slayer hip flask and Slayer fingerless gloves. It was at this point that I realised Slayer really have their finger on the pulse when it comes to supplying their fans with Slayer branded gear.
My overpriced but nonetheless cool Slayer t-shirt. Sorry for the terrible camera angle.
Thine Eyes Bleed
Thine Eyes Bleed were the first on stage at about 5:50, ten minutes earlier than the concert was slated to start. This must have caught a lot of people off guard or a lot of people mustn't particularly like TEB because the place seemed less than half full. We had taken up a position halfway between the mixing desk and the stage, what we hoped was the optimum position for sound and for minimising mosh related injury.
I hadn't heard anything by Thine Eyes Bleed before the concert so I was pretty excited to see what they were going to be like, I was of course pretty excited generally because I was less than six (six six) hours away from seeing (fuckin') Slayer. TEB had possibly the coolest, or at the very least most surprising, intro tape of the evening. They were preceded on stage by none other than Giorgio Moroder's 'Tony's Theme' from the Scarface soundtrack. This was the most awesome thing ever (there's going to be a lot of most-awesome-thing-ever moments in this update), and surely made Rory doubly sore for having to pull out of the concert at the last minute. TEB played a very short set, only 30 minutes. Their songs were probably okay, my ears hadn't quite adjusted to the immense sound yet. They didn't seem to have had a soundcheck which might account for not being able to hear anything.
TEBs solos were a particular highlight and were all really good. Solos were shared between the guitarist with long hair and possibly a beard and the bald one definitely with a beard. Overall I think I liked bald guy's solos more, and he seemed to have more.
Thine Eyes Bleed: Bald guy is on the left, mid solo
The members of TEB sported the first beards of the night and there were also lots of Jackson and ESP style guitars amongst them. This marked the start of a trend for the rest of the evening, if the whole evening wasn't sponsored by Jackson and/or Grizzly Adams, I will be VERY surprised. TEB thanked the twelve or so people who had bothered to turn up early enough to catch their set and told us they were from Canada, which is cool I guess. Another first for the evening at the end of the TEB set was TEB's singer telling the crowd how awesome the bands were going to be that night before shouting FUCKING SLAYER. I might buy a Thine Eyes Bleed album if I see one in a record shop.
Children of Bodom
Children of Bodom were the second guys on, I had actually heard some of their stuff a little before so I had a clearer idea what to expect. Bodom have a pretty cool singer and drummer. The drummer looks like a viking and the singer is a poser with long hair and puts on an evil sounding voice (if you weren't sure, that's cool). Bodom's set consisted of lots of self indulgent soloing from the singer. Bodom also had a keyboard player who never moved unless he really had to, like if he had to play something. It was a pity that you couldn't hear the keyboard player more inbetween his choral pad/ambient intros and amazingly fast solos.
Children of Bodom: Cool drummer on the left, posing evil singer on the right.
I think Bodom are from Finland, that would explain their viking drummer and the singer shouting "We're from motherfucking Finland!" in his best Hammer Horror voice. I quite liked Bodom's set, though their songs started to sound a little bit similar after a while, though this is probably more down to my lack of knowledge on their music. Bodom's set was quite a big longer than TEBs set, I think it was around the seventy minute mark. I think before their last couple of songs Bodom's singer reminded the crowd a) how awesome they were and b) how awesome the other bands on show would be, I also think he got the most impressive 'FUCKIN' SLAYER!' of the night, with his evil voice and all. I quite liked Bodom's set and if I see a Children of Bodom album in a record shop, I might buy it.
Lamb of God
Lamb of God were one of the bands playing which I'd heard nothing of before the concert, so I was pretty eager to hear their set. Lamb of God had the most amusing techs of the evening, not such an accolade I guess. I think it was in their sound-check when the guy testing the mic abandoned the usual 'testing. one two. two. TWO. T- T- T- is that okay?' format and instead said stuff like 'I want to be a porn star' and 'I like beer', the kind of stuff which got cheers from the increasingly excited crowd. LOG had some particularly cool lights, including some pentagram stencils that later appeared during Slayer. The lights were reminiscent of NIN, with lots of pans out from the band and over the crowd, very cool.
Lamb of God: This during was one of the lulls in the frenzied crowd.
Lamb of God had the crowd very excited indeed. In several of their songs they had quite a few mosh pits going, which I thought were quite exciting. From what I gathered, the violence seems overstated and it seems more of a case of running around and pushing people, though JK may disagree with me on this. Lamb of God's singer also did some crazy shouting along the lines of "Are you ready to rip your throats out and fucking die!?!?", which was highly entertaining. LOG sported more bearded guitar players and their music seemed to consist mainly of really heavy beats, I couldn't really hear very much but combined with the crazy LOG fans moshing around made their set absolutely awesome. LOG had not one huge banner, but TWO! At some point during their set they changed banners over, which was cool. I really liked LOG's set and am very likely to search out a Lamb of God album in a record shop.
In Flames
I'd heard some of In Flames stuff already, as I bought one of their 1997 album Whoracle about a week or so before the concert. I hadn't really had much chance to really take it in though so I was still pretty in the dark as to what they would be like. Stew said their earlier stuff was better, so I was hoping Whoracle fit into that category. Their set was on the whole pretty good, they were probably the least heavy band of the evening, but their sound was good and you could hear everything particularly well, especially the singer, again probably due more to ear acclimitisation than anything else. We had another cool intro tape from In Flames, which was the Knight Rider soundtrack coupled with the second best stage visuals of the evening, some neat LED screens which were over their amps. During the Knight Rider intro, the LEDs panned some red dots across, like the little thing on KIT, this was really cool.
In Flames: The cool LED things in front of the amps.
There was probably too much talking between songs from the singer who seemed eager to get some audience participation. Considering this, In Flames seemed to me to want to be like Metallica, the big stadium-filling band, not necessarily a bad thing though. Some of the talking between songs was pretty entertaining, we learned from their singer that people from Birmingham are fags. Also, he was cool about people throwing shit on stage (not actual feces). Some guy threw a bottle of water on stage during this little talk and was shouted down by the singer. "Water is for pussies, throw some alcohol up next time." I'm guessing that guy was from Birmingham. In Flames of course had more beards, which undoutdedly helped them over their set. It seems they were missing a guitar player, so one guy did all the solos whilst the stand-in presumably stuck to rhythm duties. I think In Flames are from Sweden, I think we learned this from Bodom's singer earlier, probably some scandinavian solidarity going on there, sadly no vikings.
In Flames: One of the more impressive photos, shows just how bright the lights were and how huge the banners were.
In Flames suffered from being on before Slayer, they played a pretty enjoyable set but I was wanting Slayer and it felt like their set dragged a little, especially with all the talking between songs. I've already got an In Flames album, but I might get another one of theirs if I see one cheap in a record store.
Slayer
Slayer's entry was preceded by the crowd chanting 'SLAYER! SLAYER! SLAYER!'. Things went fucking nuts when the lights went out, there was a further surge in intensity when the tape intro for South of Heaven started. This was probably the coolest moment of the evening so far, and Slayer hadn't actually started playing yet. Sadly, Slayer were too exciting and Stew didn't get any photos of them. But don't fear, Carl's photographic memory combined with MS Paint will give you an idea what it was like!
Seeing as I'm far more knowledgable of Slayer's music I've got a fairly good idea what their set-list was. I think these are all the songs they played but they're only rougly in the correct order.
South of Heaven
Silent Scream
War Ensemble
Disciple
Cult
Jihad
Seasons in the Abyss
Dead Skin Mask
Raining Blood
Eyes of the Insane
Supremist
Postmortem
Mandatory Suicide
Angel of Death
It's pretty clear that that is a fantastic set-list. Slayer obviously were far and away the most awesome thing of the evening. They had particularly good stage design. The usual array of Marshall amps were arranged in an inverted crucifix pattern hanging from the ceiling- this was über cool. They also had this awesome projector set up which played images from the album artwork of the song they were playing along with various Slayer logos, pentagrams and other satanic shit- totally boner inducing. For the songs from the new album they had some animations, mainly an animation of the artwork from Christ Illusion, which was certainly showing during Cult. For Jihad they had a series of images showing the 9/11 attacks and some arabic writing presumably from the Qoran. Nothing like a bit of controversy thrown into the mix. Supremist had some stills of various dictators, I spotted Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and possibly Saddam Hussein. For Eyes of the Insane the projector had a video of a giant eye with images of warfare and Iraq going on in the background. I was totally blown away by these projector images, totally appropriate to the songs and very, very cool. I heard someone behind me say they didn't like them, but I felt they totally added to the whole atmosphere during Slayer's set. You knew when you were watching Slayer and they had all that stuff going up on the big screen that they were still controversial and still cutting the bullshit etc. Have I said the visuals were the most awesome thing ever yet?
Who needs a camera when you've got Paint?
I should probably talk about the actual set list itself. Well, kicking things off with South of Heaven with the classic tape intro and then going straight into Silent Scream was 'totally boner inducing' and 'totally awesome' etc. They don't really play Silent Scream very much and it's easily one of my favourite Slayer songs beside the obvious ones often referred to as 'classics'. I was thinking during Silent Scream that they might be doing what they did for Reign In Blood's twenty year anniversary and play the album in its entirety. That would have been super cool, but seeing as it wasn't a full Slayer set that'd mean we wouldn't get any songs off the new album which I also really wanted to hear. I was super pleased they played the full version of Seasons In The Abyss with the slow intro and all. It's really difficult to put into words how fantastic that intro sounds when it's coming at you live from a gigantic PA. CRUSHINGLY MONOLITHIC! Another song I really liked was Eyes of the Insane which I thought wouldn't be the kind of song that would get played live much. I was unsure whether the drum bit at the end could actually be played live, but it was and was just as cool.
I wish people wouldn't put their gay watermark on their photos.
Slayer's actual sound was easily the best of the evening. You don't realise what an amazing drummer Dave Lombardo is until you can actually feel those tom riffs and double bass. The guitars were so powerful, awesome. Jeff and Kerry looked like they were having a good time, lots of head banging and Jeff did the thing where he points his finger at his head when Tom says 'insane'. Jeff also had what I believe is a new guitar, which had the Heineken logo on it, very cool. Tom Araya still has a beard it seems, which makes him look decidedly Rob Zombie-ish. There was gratuitous head banding from Slayer and plenty of head banging from the crowd, myself included. Tom's little lead-inds to songs, are just as cool as previous live recordings suggest.
"There are many ways to die. There are many ways one can achieve death. Many ways to achieve POST! MORTEM!"
"This is our love ballad, it's about a man named Ed Gein."
Those little bits meant that Slayer's set was not only evil as hell, but also pretty funny too. The increase in headbanging and people crowding as close to the stage in Slayer meant that nearby people got more annoying. Thankfully the people in front of us weren't too tall. However, an annoying girl with long hair kept screaming 'SLAYER!' in between songs, which was most ear piercing. She did apologise to me though, and seemed pretty hot, so who cares? In front of Stew was a guy who blatantly didn't know the words so instead compensated doing devil horns all the time, much to the detriment of Stew's viewing experience. Strangely, a blonde haired guy appeared next to me halfway through the set and tried to start a fight with the guy in front. After that wasn't a success, he started head banging really wildly, and this guy had a lot of blonde hair, which had obviously had a lot of hair care products recently. Stew later described him as looking like 'somebody from Wayne's World'. Now I know what Jesus felt like during the 39 lashes. Well, maybe I don't. Anyway, Wayne's World Man disappeared after a while, probably disappointed the group of people around where we were standing weren't so into making a massive mosh pit. At least where Stew and I were standing there wasn't too much in the way of mosh pits. JK had become separated from us before the In Flames set however and he apparently found himself in the middle of a particularly violent circle pit. Another bizarre Slayer fan was some guy on crutches, who was actually closer to the stage than we were. Whether he acquired said crutches in Lamb of God's set was unclear, he was either very brave or very stupid. I wouldn't go anywhere near a Slayer concert if I was about 13 (as this guy looked) and if I had a broken leg or something. Towards the end of Slayer's set I think I saw a crutch being thrown around by the crowd in front, so no idea what happened to that guy.
On a related point, there were far too many kids at the concert in Slipknot hoodies etc. This isn't the time or the place for that, and you're not welcome.
Slipknot fans: This speaks for itself. The three kids on the right realise how stupid it is, they're probably Slayer fans.
The raining beer was most intense during Slayer, though it might have been more appropriate were it raining blood. Though that'd be pretty sick. Over the course of the evening we had been sprayed with beer which people projected into the air before a band started playing or during a particularly intense part of a song. This was pretty cool and hilarious, though considering the extortionate prices at the bar and the rarity of the guys meandering through the crowd with beer tanks on their backs, the beer launching guys must have more money than most people or really not like beer very much. All sorts of shit was thrown around during Slayer, which was really entertaining. Towards the end of the set, there was more items of clothing being thrown around, I definitely saw a shoe hurled into the air and possibly a pair of trousers. Crazy Slayer fans. I saw a few people who must have been in the pits walking around without t-shirts, only further adding to their metal warrior look, but I didn't see anyone minus trousers. Sadly no topless girls sat on people's shoulders, the only person I seen mounted on their metal steed (that's a fat, sweaty guy with no t-shirt, if you didn't know what a 'metal steed' is) was some drunk guy who later fell off before Slayer came on.
I'm pretty sure that the last two songs were Mandatory Suicide and then Angel of Death. Mandatory was preceded by another amusing talky bit from Tom along the lines of "this is dedicated to all the men in your services, this is a song about choice! This is MANDATORY! SUICIDE!!!". Angel Of Death was probably preceded by a shout along the lines of what's in the little sound box below. I can't really recally because I was in a pretty euphoric stage at this point.