What have in common CLAIM YOUR THRONE, TALES FOR THE UNSPOKEN and EQUALEFT (besides the record label Raising Legends)? They were all invited to the release party of WEB‘s third record, “Everything Ends” (review here, in case you’ve missed it and, of course, are interested in reading it).
CLAIM YOUR THRONE is a young hardcore-meets-metal band that’s still in the process of recording their debut album. So apart from “Vagrant”, that someone was kind enough to record and share on YouTube, I have no idea what songs they played. But they were all pretty aggressive and mosh-friendly, as hardcore should be. But the crowd didn’t engage at first, despite the band being local and having a few friends present. So singer Rúben and bass player Marcos took the front row and started the circles themselves, not taking that long for others to surrender to CLAIM YOUR THRONE‘s adrenaline.
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TALES FOR THE UNSPOKEN had released their sophomore album “CO2” one month earlier in their hometown Coimbra, so they weren’t just joining WEB‘s celebration but also having one of their own. Groovy thrash spiced with singer Marco‘s cheerful mood – referring to WEB as a newbie band, when in fact their career is almost as long as Marco‘s life, that was top – they played songs from the new album such as “I, Claudius” (featuring EQUALEFT-Miguel Inglês), “Soul For A Soul” or “Crossroads”, but also a few mandatory tracks from their debut “Alchemy”, like “Say My Name” and “N’Takuba Wena”.
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EQUALEFT… Apart from the little homage they paid WEB by covering the chorus of “Mortal Soul” – a cover that was supposed to be a surprise but when WEB-Nando and Pedro got on stage and sang along, EQUALEFT were the surprised ones – and Miguel remembering WEB‘s original late singer when saying how good it felt to be in an event with bands so different from each other, just as David liked and would have wanted, there’s nothing I can say that I haven’t said in previous live reports. It’s EQUALEFT. Period.
And then WEB.
Unlike “Deviance”, they didn’t perform the whole album. One of the missing songs was “Leaving Scars”, so Miguel Inglês didn’t join them, as everybody was expecting to happen. But when WEB played “Mortal Soul” themselves, singer Nando mentioned him and the whole EQUALEFT boys, by saying that now we’d have the chance to see which version of that song we liked the most – theirs or EQUALEFT‘s.
They didn’t have any guests, actually. DEMENTIA 13-Nuno, who sings on “Death My Enemy”, lives in Manchester, true, but they could have easily found someone to replace him. Some other guest, I mean, ’cause it was drummer Pedro who ended up growling on it. Not a bad choice at all!
Introducing “False Prophets”, Nando told the crowd that WEB didn’t do walls of death. (“I’m sorry, we just don’t.”) Still he told them to create a void in the middle, but for a wall of… dance! At the count of three, everybody should start marching to the rhythm of the song, mimicking him and guitarist Victor, and after that, they could do whatever they wanted. I thought they would end up engulfing on each other, just like any other wall of death, but they were so amused with that wall of dance thing, and meanwhile, with the marching, they weren’t even aligned properly anymore, so it didn’t happen. Just a mosh circle, eventually, with everybody laughing at that “world premiere experience”.
The show was supposed to end with “Awake”, but the crowd wanted more and WEB couldn’t say no. “If Only There Was Light”, a song that ended many of their shows but hadn’t been played live for a while now, was the bonus track of the night. I don’t get tired of saying how proud I am of being part of this family.
If you’ve been reading my articles, you know how hard it is for me to take pictures at Metalpoint. This time I didn’t even try hard, as the following week I’d be seeing the same bands (except for CLAIM YOUR THRONE) at Canecas Bar and I would have my photo-revenge there.
Front Row Forever 