Volbeat Review

Last Saturday myself and Mikey T headed to London to see Volbeat.
I have commented in this blog before about how excited I was to be going to this gig, especially after they cancelled last year and I saw them open the main stage at Soni earlier this year.

The train up was uneventful, as was the tube to the venue. Which is much easier than previously thought. In fact, once at Waterloo, you jump on the Northern line and 9 stops later you're in Kentish Town and there is the HMV Forum!

We grabbed a light dinner at Sainsburys and then joined the queue to get in, which was very long but moved quickly even which everyone being searched on entry.
Inside, the venue resembles the HMV Apollo in Hammersmith, although instead of a sloping floor it is tiered. We headed down to the lowest tier and found a spot very close to the stage at the left hand side and against a staircase which supplied some nice leaning comfort.

The support band were Black Spiders, I was certain I had seen them before but wasn't sure until they opened their set with Stay Down. Black Spiders were awesome and a great choice of band to open for Volbeat. They belted out their songs and the crowd really responded to them. Me and Mike both commented on the fact that the drums seemed to overpower the other musicians, this could be due to our locality near to the stage or the aesthetics of the venue. Either way, it didn't disrupt the enjoyment of an awesome band who I would gladly see again.

After the interval, Volbeat took to the stage and all I can say is 'Holy Hell!', they were amazing! The crowd were bouncing, singing, cheering and clapping throughout the whole set. I had seen the setlist from other gigs on this tour and I don't think I would've changed a thing. The band were clearly happy to be in London and continually involved the crowd. During one of the inter song chats, Michael Poulsen (lead singer) asked what the crowd wanted to hear, cue unintelligible shouting from the crowd. So Volbeat played some bars of 'Tallica & Motorhead, before Poulsen said that one of his favourite bands are Napalm Death. This lead to them playing a ND song and then saying something which I didn't hear. What he said became clear when they began playing Evelyn and  Mark “Barney” Greenway from ND walked onto the stage to provide the screaming vocals for the song. They played out the rest of their set, with time to play a tribute to Queen, with the same ferociousness that had been the theme throughout the night.

Favourite songs from the set -  All of them! I cant even pick the best one, they were just that superb.

This is easily one of the best gigs I have ever been to and I really hope to see Volbeat again, either in a main festival slot or on their own headline tour.