You can tell the quality of something by how it ends. Usually shows grind to a halt in the same anodyne fashion. There are the habitual thank you’s, the obligatory picture for Facebook and then the un-ceremonial shuffle off stage to finish off the rider. Not tonight. Tonight is both extraordinary and quintessentially spontaneous. The Halo Effect’s final track of the evening, ‘Shadowmind’, shudders to a halt and something really quite special unfurls. For a good five minutes the band stay on the stage, faces plastered with gleeful emotion venerating the audience as much as the audience is venerating them.
Read MoreOver on the continent, this billing makes perfect sense. You see Pain may be a side project of Hypocrisy main man Peter Tägtgren but its success in mainland Europe has in many ways eclipsed that of his day job. Over here it is a different story and whilst folk metallers Ensiferum are billed as a “very special guest” on UK soil this has become very much a double header and there are far more Ensiferum shirts to be seen upon entering the building.
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