Bury Tomorrow, August Burns Red, The Novelists-Brighton

Brighton, 21^st October I had my mind blown at the cheapest gig I have ever been to. Bury Tomorrow and August Runs Red for less than £23.

Night one of the their co-headlined tour at the Chalk nightclub on the Brighton seafront. These bands are two of the GOATs of metalcore (or whatever subgenre they fall into) but after both original support bands, Miss May I and Thornhill pulled out of the tour last minute, they enlisted French band ‘Novelists’ to support them.

With three days notice and a stand in vocalist in Sam Kubrick, this band blew my mind. Holding my hands up I didn’t know anything about the band till that night, however every aspect of their performance was incredible, the lighting rig they had set up was sensational and the lighing changes fitted seemlessly with every song they played.

The playing from the bad was flawless and with a stand in vocalist was impressive, with Sam Kubricks screams and quiet low cleans being fantastic and got the crowd more pumped than I have ever seen from a support act. The band even stuck around after to sort their merch table and I spoke to guitarist Florestan Durand who was just a lovely down to earth guy. This band 100% has a new fan from that gig.

After a short change over, the lights went down and the intro to ‘Chop Suey’, Jake Luhrs came to stage and burst into the first line with power and intesity which didn’t diminish through their set. August Burns Red showed how to get a crowd going with their own passion, every song hit and with the crowd split in two, one side for a pit and the other for standees, every person in that crowd was hanging onto every word and felt every bit of his screamed vocals. After a flawless nearly hour long set the lights went back down and Bury Tomorrow were getting ready.

Bury Tomorrow proved why they are so beloved, the crowd control was excellent, calling for pits, making jokes about other bands, bigging up the other bands and giving a speech about how grateful they are to still have people coming out with times as hard as they are.

I could go on for pages about how good the vocals, guitar, bass and drummer was on this gig but everyone knows how good they are, the real important part was the new music. From the new album ‘Seventh Sun’ not coming out till March 31^st next year, they performed songs never done live before, like ‘Begin Again’ and ‘Death’ as well as finishing on ‘Abandon Us’ which only dropped two weeks prior.

Although bands do go on tour to promote a new album, with this being the Abandon Us tour, bands normally still play their older stuff for the nostalgia, but the oldest song they played was ‘Cemetery’ from their fourth album Earthbound. Nearly in their 15^th year of being together they show no sign of slowing or relying on previous albums with a lineup change which still kept the essence of the band.

Merch tables were set up for each band with, t-shirts, hoodies, guitar pics, patches and pre orders of new albums available. The Chalk Venue although a bit pricey on the drinks, has a great area for gigs, and any too unruley audience members were ejected quickly, and anyone who left the pit was checked on and given water when needed.

For less than £23, and the calibre of bands and performances puts this gig as one i’ll remember forever.