As people shuffle in from the blistering cold, they are met by the haze of Rebellion, no not the punk manifesto, the venue. Faces can’t be seen, only silhouettes, but that’s okay it saves us bearing witness to each other crying during Svalbard’s final tour.
Knife Bride were up first and drew quite a crowd! Not so much that you lost sight of the floor, but enough that you couldn’t swing your arms around like at the start of a primary school dance lesson. Showing love for the other bands on tour, the room is flooded with purple lights as the evening began. Winning the crowd over wasn’t optional for the Brighton-based openers; it was inevitable. With the singer Mollie Clack dancing like she was possessed by Wednesday Addams herself and wrapping up their set with fan favs ‘WORTHY’ and ‘FANG DUMMY’.
As the next support band took to the stage, the shimmering spotlight gave off the deceiving notion of calm. What was received couldn’t have been further from that with Cage Fight‘s unforgiving presence that ripped through the room. Despite their bassist Will Chain (who was standing in for their guitarist) remaining seated due to a recently dislocated knee, their set was still hit hard enough to jeopardise everyone else’s knees. Vocalist Rachel Aspe acted so nonchalant during her performance as if the sound coming out of her wasn’t that of the fiery depths of hell. With the headbanging getting serious, a sound track of pig noises, and the room raising their horns to the roof, Cage Fight certainly paved the way for the headliners of the evening.
Remember being able to see the floor earlier? Yeah, well you can’t now. From stage to doors, the only pocket of space that could be found was behind the gaggle of tall men. A positive sentiment given the all-female fronted bands tearing up the stage and as the room plunged into darkness, we knew the time to say goodbye had arrived.
If the looming reason behind the show wasn’t enough, opening with ‘Disparity’ cemented the foundation for this emotionally charged set. And following up with one of their more popular tracks, ‘Open Wound’, Svalbard really started to give the lyrics of these songs a new meaning. The crowd moved in whichever way the music commanded them to before the band pulled out their newest and last release, ‘If We Could Still Be Saved’. “We’re gonna play it live now for the second time ever”, a statement made by front woman Serena Cherry when introducing the song. Normally, this kind of sentiment would be met with a uniformity of excitement but instead it was like a quiet sadness fell over the room, because everyone knew this song would only be played live a handful of times, and we were fortunate enough to witness one of those precious occasions.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Before long, the hair helicopters were spotted in the crowd, helping to keep the temperature down as things started to heat up. With Serena sharing the love for their fans between songs, especially to those who have been there since the beginning and how they are ending Svalbard as they started “with passion in our hearts and no money in our bank accounts”. The chorus of laughter brought the whole room together, like a family closing a chapter in light of new beginnings.
As everyone tried to absorb as much of the evening as possible, it started to come to an end, with a light-hearted introduction to ‘Faking It’ and a nod to all those that came before with ‘Eternal Spirits’. That sadness crept in again. Calls for “one more song” bounced around the venue before the band had even walked off the stage, and they blessed us with ‘Greyscale’ as one of their last encores.
With Svalbard put to rest, it’s hard to feel anything other than gratitude for being able to play witness to their funeral. As a band that were included in our first print magazine, to the many other times we got to shout about them and see them live, this Hardbeat family will miss them.
RIP Svalbard.