Glamour of the Kill @ Orange Box
Orange Box, Yeovil
Support: Shadows Chasing Ghosts, The Valiant, Undertryyke
You know you were suitably impressed or psychotically obsessed when you make the effort to travel to see a band twice on the same tour. I consider myself to be the former, hence traveling further out of my usual music catchment area to get a second helping of Glamour of the Kill.
Though tickets were still available on the door that night, the audience began to swell around the stage to be warmed up by the supports.
First up were Undertryyke, a Yeovil prog metal four-piece. As was echoed later by The Valiant’s lead singer, despite the unusual twists and turns brought about by their use of keyboard and electric guitar, you couldn’t help but be a tad unsettled by Undertryyke singer Larz’s boyish looks contradicting his death metal growls. Nevertheless, they were greatly received and got the first moshers on the scene – usually a good sign for the first support band, but more about them later.
Next came Southampton’s The Valiant, who seemingly couldn’t believe the reception they were receiving. More polished than Undertryyke, they set more headsbanging and further moshers indulged in a wall of death.
Shadowings Chasing Ghosts – Glamour of the Kill’s “tour brothers” – gave yet another energetic and enthusiastic performance, yet their set and stage banter didn’t appear to vary much compared to the Southampton performance I attended earlier this month.
Finally Glamour of the Kill made their entrance, hair immaculately groomed (well, maybe not Jack Daniels fueled guitarist Mike Kingswood, who spent the majority of the set fighting a losing battle with his mane) and pumped for action. Immediately the aforementioned moshers began to pace out the biggest, most unnecessary circle pit for a venue of Orange Box’s size, continuing to march in a circle like bulls on acid.
As Glamour of the Kill kicked off with Supremacy, so did the moshers, beginning in the usual manner, then going on to flail their legs and arms like something out of Street Fighter. For those further back, they could only have proved to be an unwelcome distraction from what otherwise would have been a well executed first few tracks for the band.
Idiots aside, Glamour of the Kill continued to plough through their setlist, which I assume was the same for each venue in comparing the performances in both Southampton and Yeovil. Yeovil’s crowd appeared much more passionate in singing along to every line, and despite the sound quality being a little poor, it was clearly music to their ears.
Once again the set seemed somewhat short with GOTK taking to the stage some time after 10.20pm, but it certainly was a case of quality versus quantity, with quality effortlessly coming out on top.
On both occasions though, I can’t help but feel GOTK would have done well out of exploiting their cover of Iron Maiden’s 2 Minutes To Midnight as recorded for Kerrang!’s Maiden Heaven tribute album. It’s not often a cover sets a standard almost equivalent to the original, but that said to be able to hold your own on a 29 date tour with all your own material shows Glamour of the Kill don’t need to rely on the success of others to pave their way to the top.
If you haven’t already been to one of the tour dates, I suggest you get in on the action.
- See also: Glamour of the Kill Southampton review
