Dave took a trip to the Engine Rooms, Southampton to review Motionless in White (MIW) returning for their first headline UK Tour for two years along with guests Cane Hill and Ice Nine Kills (INK). How did they get on? Dave reports…
Sadly, Dave’s trip started with some terrible news. Cane Hill had a lot of equipment stolen and were unable to play that night. (They have since recovered the equipment and will continue with the rest of the planned dates).
So with the makeshift set times and interview times adjusted INK came on at 8 PM, wasting no time by launching straight into ‘communion of the cursed’ based on the classic horror novel/film ‘The Exorcist’.
INK continue to blast their way through a set which included songs like ‘Bloodbath & Beyond’ ‘The Nature Of The Beast’ ‘Step Through The Cracks’ and ‘Hell In The Hallways’ all based on literary classics like ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘Dracula’. The crowd responded to the energy of that INK brought by starting circle pits which got bigger with every song and by screaming along to all the words. They may have been opening but there were clearly many people there for INK as well as MIW.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get more hyped, INK bring out ‘ Enjoy Your Slay’. The crowd went up another level and the whole place went crazy, jumping up and down and singing along with the one-off single based on Stephen King’s classic novel ‘The Shining’. Before finishing up with ‘Me, Myself & Hyde’ (No prizes for guessing which novel this one is based on!).
With that, the set was over and I was over to INK’s tour bus to interview lead vocalist Spencer Charnas (which you can check out here).
I ran back into the venue to hear the first chord of MIW’s first song ‘Rats’. The UK was very lucky, getting a fuller MIW show which has been lacking in previous tours. We were treated to the full lights show, so stunning, I’m surprised I didn’t have a migraine the following day! Unsurprisingly, the stage itself was dark with plenty of shock rock items popping up such as girls in zombie cheerleading outfits were up on stage dancing around vocalist Chris “Motionless” Cerulli .
MIW played primarily from their ‘Graveyard Shift’ albums- going through ‘Reincarnate’ ‘Necessary Evil’ before reaching ‘Soft’, ironically names as arguably the heaviest song off the album except ‘The Ladder’ where we saw the first circle pit of the set.
‘Abigail’ the sixth song of the set but first not from the new album (having being released on their debut album’creatures’). Spencer Charnas shows he wasn’t quite tired enough yet as he joined MIW on stage singing with Chris.
They made a quick stop at the new album with the single ‘570’ before playing ‘A-M-E-R-I-C-A’ with Chris working the crowd admirably, hyping up the crowd more and more with each passing song. ‘Chop Suey’ the classic System Of A Down hit was a surprising but welcoming addition.
They then went through most of The Graveyard Shift’ playing Dead as Fuck and Not My Type: Dead as Fuck 2 bringing the zombie cheerleaders to the fore as they danced with signs. After announcing their last song, boos echoed around the room. That soon turned to laughter and cheering when Chris said to ‘Fuck off, you know as well I do, we don’t mean and we are going to come out and play another.’ With renewed vigor, MIW rounded off with ‘Devil’s night from the 2012 album ‘Infamous’ with the crowd jumping and shouting as crazily as ever. After leaving the stage, they came back to the shouts of ‘one more song’ as promised to play ‘Eternally yours’ one of the singles from ‘The Graveyard Shift’.
The crowd left the engine rooms exhausted but content. It was, of course, disappointing that I am unable to speak much about Cane Hill, particularly as their album ‘Too Far Gone’ was released, hours before the gig.
However, Motionless in White showed why they are one of the best live bands on the scene at the moment, not only delivering great songs but a stage show and a vocalist. unafraid of crowd interaction who has the ability to whip them into a frenzy.
Ice Nine Kills proved why they are one of the best up and coming metal bands. As said in the interview, they aim to crack ‘everything up to 11’ and that’s exactly what they did. They brought energy and aggression and got the crowd ready for a Motionless set. As well as probably, winning over a few people who hadn’t heard of them before.
Don’t forget to check our interview with INK’s lead vocalist Spencer Charnas here).