"Metal Strikes Again In Toronto"

Show: August 12, 2008 @ Kool Haus, Toronto, ON.
Metal fans certainly have had a lot to be grateful for in these past few weeks. Following the boundless intensity of the Mayhem Festival the week before, British thrash metal group Bullet For My Valentine came through town to the Kool Haus as part of the No Fear music tour. They also brought Bleeding Through and the Cancer Bats along with them, the latter hometown heroes, for the night.

The Cancer Bats stormed on stage to a massive welcome from the hometown audience, and despite being the openers got the crowd going right away. Front man Liam Cormier split his time between stalking back and forth on the stage and standing on the barrier against the crowd, who were all too happy to form a giant circle pit in the middle of the venue. Playing through tracks off of both their records the Bats have improved ten fold since the last time I caught them last summer, and they were already fantastic then. Ending their set with French Immersion Cormier dove right into the pit to be with the crowd.

Following them was Bleeding Through, who despite my best recollection was not nearly as hard as I remembered them, or as engaging as the Bats had been. Singer Brandan Schieppati admirably handled both singing and screaming duties for the band but seemed slightly awkward on the stage and was unable to engage the crowd. Their set consisted of a few choice songs from their older material as well as a number of new songs from their forthcoming record "Declaration". Ending with a crowd pleaser, they quickly left to make way for Bullet.

Bullet For My Valentine, taking the stage concealed by a white sheet at first, quickly appeared and launched into their album title track 'Scream Aim Fire'. What followed was as far as I could tell the same song about 10 times over. The band did continually encourage the crowd to get involved and as they were there for them the crowd was more than happy to oblige. The band played well off each other and was continually mobile about the stage often standing on the platforms at the front. One special highlight of the night was lead singer Matt Tuck performing their song 'All These Things I Hate' acoustically. Despite their decent performance, the songs eventually all ran into each other and soon they left the stage, leaving those who were there for them pleased.