Category Archives: Heavy Metal

This past Sunday, metal and hard rock fans set aside the Superbowl, and came out in droves to the MTELUS theatre in Montreal for Black Veil Brides and Asking Alexandria, on the latest stop of the co-headlining Resurrection Tour.

People from all over Eastern Canada braved the freezing cold Montreal weather to see the metal monsters Anthrax and Killswitch Engage co-headlining show at MTelus on Thursday night. This was the first show of the “Killthrax II” tour that runs until March across North America.

Montreal’s Punk music festival, Pouzza Fest, has officially announced 50% of their line up for the May long weekend. Pouzza 8, a festival named through a blending of poutine and pizza (not literally I hope… or do I? I’ll get back to you on this…) has once again brought together some of the most sought after punk bands to the multi venue/stage festival.

After making some of the most brutal, breathtakingly aggressive, all-hell’s-a-breaking-loose music ever created, being one of the four bands that defined an entire musical genre and being the band that other heavy acts are measured against and aspire to…after nearly 37 years, releasing 12 studio albums, multiple live recordings, compilations, live video and two box sets, playing nearly 3000 concerts in all corners of the world, receiving countless awards including five Grammy nominations and two Grammy awards, Gold records and other accolades…having its own exhibit in the Smithsonian Institute, gracing hundreds of magazine covers, experiencing the devastating loss of a founding brother, and even appearing on “The Tonight Show,” the age of Slayer, one of the greatest thrash/metal/punk bands of this or any age, is coming to an end.

There was no shortage of a crowd at the Canadian Tire Centre for Sunday night’s Avenged Sevenfold show. Unsure of what to expect in terms of crowd size for a Sunday night, I was pleasantly surprised by a decent crowd for the first set. Bullet For My Valentine was first up on the bill and went on just after six, which is quite early, but the crowd was excited and ready for the night to begin. Groups of those on the floor were eagerly awaiting the headliners, while many were clearly fans of all three bands. The Welsh heavy metal band got the crowd going, encouraging those on the floor to start moshing they traced back through their bands history for songs. Tornado pits quickly grew in the crowd and bodies began surfing around those with tickets on the floor.

Everyone knows we love live music, we have the luxury of getting into many of our favourite shows as media but we know that for most of you that’s not the case and sometimes it’s tough to pick and choose which shows you’re going to take in. While Live Nation hopes to make that choice a little easier with their Great Canadian Hometown Tours promotion!

As we say farewell to another year we thought it would be fun to look back at 20 (in no particular order) of our favourite moments, in pictures, from across Canada.

For years now, Ottawa has been missing a bar where the heavy metal lovers can get together and enjoy delicious food while listening to their favourite tunes, but the wait is finally over!

Finland’s extreme metal superstars Children of Bodom brought their 20 Years Down & Dirty to Ottawa on Wednesday night and things were bound to get crazy!

The progressive death metal band Uncured from New York opened the metal night at the absolutely packed Bronson Centre.

The second to hit the stage was Lost Society from Jyvaskyla, Finland. The young band has an insane amount of positive energy on stage, and their short but solid set was sure to warm up any trash metal fans in the audience with influences from Megadeth and Pantera.

Lost Society at Bronson Centre. Photo by Laura Collins.

The much anticipated Dutch horror metal band Carach Angren entered the stage surrounded by ghostly holograms was sure to be a memorable performance. The haunting synth combined with the heavy guitar riffs and some extreme drumming combined with singer Dennis Droomer’s guttural vocals left more than a few people collecting their jaws off the floor and wanting to see more of the theatrical band.

Carach Angren at Bronson Centre. Photo by Laura Collins.

It’s hard to believe it has been 20 years since Children of Bodom released their debut album Something Wild. The front man Alexi Laiho seems to be in the best shape ever and making his larger than life guitar solos look absolutely effortless.

Children of Bodom at Bronson Centre. Photo by Laura Collins.

The band has been on the road most of the year, touring in Europe in the spring, and bringing in the North American leg of the tour in October, having only two shows left in Canada after the Ottawa show. There was no sign tiredness showing from any of the band members as they put on a show that turned the ecstatic Bronson Centre crowd into a giant mosh pit and a flow of crowd surfers going through the floor for most of the second half of the show.

It has been a while since I’ve seen such a passionate audience, singing almost every song from word to word. Laiho was clearly enjoying his time on stage as well, encouraging the crowd to be louder.

Children of Bodom is one of the biggest bands to come out of the promised land of metal bands, and showed us what it takes to conquer the world, over and over.

Setlist:

1. Deadnight Warrior
2. In The Shadows
3. Needled 24/7
4. Hatebreeder
5. Lake Bodom
6. Warheart
7. Hate Me!
8. Red Light In My Eyes Part 2
9. Downfall
10. Everytime I Die
11. Children of Bodom
12. Hate Crew Deathroll
13. Bed of Razors
14. Kissing the Shadows

Encore:

1. The Nail
2. Towards Dead End

By Laura Collins.

Fresh off their Sold Out European tour, Papa Roach are coming back stateside, hitting the road in support of their critically acclaimed ninth studio effort, Crooked Teeth. The tour kicks off on April 5th in Raleigh, NC and runs through May 13th, wrapping up in Corpus Christi, TX. The tour will be hitting twenty five cities featuring special guests and 2018 Grammy Award Nominee Nothing More, with support from Escape the Fate.