Some shows loom large in the memory for many moons to come. Midnight’s inaugural visit to this fair city back in June ‘22 is one such instant. Tales of masked men hanging from support beams and unheard-of reserves of ravaged energy have been passed around the metal fraternity ever since. It has achieved such a legendary status (of course we were there, our review can be found here) that their return to Manchester less than two years later has become something of an event. Rebellion is impressively packed out for a Tuesday, with an audience made up of those who were lucky enough to be in the Academy 3 24 months ago and their mates who have been dragged along to enjoy the spectacle.

High Command get the party started by serving us up a steaming pile of thrash like Mother used to make it. Fresh from a blazing set at last year's Damnation Festival (yes, we were there), they unleash an impressively vigorous response from the audience, especially given that they are first on. Kevin Fitzgerald enters the fray wielding two incredibly lifelike broadswords. It looks like he seems intent on doing some serious damage to the front row, but he then rests them against the backline and proceeds instead to beat the merry hell out of his sturdy chain-link microphone. Sturdy may not actually be the best descriptive noun, as pretty soon he has broken the darn thing, and it spends the rest of the set drooping in a corner.

There is something carnal and organic about High Command’s approach to thrash. In the same way that their stateside compatriots are taking death metal back to basics, they have reawakened what was so blindingly exciting about thrash in the first place. They hurtle through the set at a breakneck speed, dispensing razor-sharp riff after razor-sharp riff. The hordes in front of the stage need very little encouragement to start whirling around in a circular fashion and it is obvious that this retro reimagining of a much-loved genre has absolutely hit the G spot. 

The old adage of good things come to those who wait has never been truer than this evening. Flemish old-skool thrash legends Cyclone never got the chance to visit the UK during their first incarnation. However, 40 years on from their inception, here they are ready to prove why their reincarnation has created such waves amongst those who know. Guido Gevels may have the look of a man who should be nursing a pint early doors in a Wetherspoon, but he has a down-to-earth charisma that just smoulders with authenticity. He air guitars along with every track, lost in his own private ecstasy.

The only other survivor from the eighties is guitarist Stefan Daamen, who stands stoically stage right releasing penetrating riff upon penetrating riff. He cuts a much more elusive and steely character than his brother in arms, but it is still obvious that he is ecstatic to be out doing this again. What is most edifying about the set is how fresh and modern their version of thrash feels. Everything (bar one track) comes from their 1986 debut “Brutal Destruction” and its 1990 follow-up “Inferior to None”. Yet the set brims with vital intensity and pretty soon the room has reached the same level of wanton velocity that was felt during the opening act.

There is a smattering of ancient thrash-heads who can't quite believe they are finally witnessing this much-venerated juggernaut of an act. But in the main Cyclone are an unknown commodity to those gathered in front of them and they smash it. They rule the roost with a combination of honest emotion and route 101 thrash that just drips with quality and minimalism. Let's hope to God it isn’t another forty years until they get over here again as let's be honest that isn’t going to be pretty.

Midnight don't just play rock 'n' roll, they strip it down to its four raw elements: driving guitar, thumping bass, pounding drums and lustful howl. They then dispense it with a level of unbridled passion and power that is hitherto unheard of.  Midnight are a primordial delight. They discard everything that makes our music bloated and unpalatable and tonight we all collectively fall back in love with the visceral and brutal beauty of untamed rock 'n' roll. 

Athenar and Vanik are human dynamos, hurling themselves around the stage with no thought or care for their own personal safety. The latter duck waddles with no sense of irony and thrusts himself down on his knees at least twice within every track. Athenar does not restrain himself either and uses his bass guitar as a weapon, jutting it into the audience like he is trying to poke a particularly lethargic bear. The performance area becomes a veritable battleground of contorted war dances as Athenar and Vanik parade around like psychopathic peacocks on acid.

The kinetic commotion on stage is both catchy and highly addictive. Before long there has been a hearty transfer of energy, and the pit reaches levels of inhuman velocity. Bodies slam into each other and limbs flail. It is neanderthal and violent, but also stunningly well self-policed, with a man mountain of a pit troll picking up anyone who hits the ground. There is also an unending stream of stage divers coming from all directions. Rather than disturb the performance, it invigorates the band and ensures that they quite simply just up the ante.

As Motorhead aptly demonstrated until the day that Lemmy died, Rock 'n' roll is at its most beautiful when it is at its most simple. Midnight has picked up the mantle and have absolutely flown with it. There are elements of thrash coming into the material from the just-released “Hellish Expectations” but really, this is all about the puerile wonder of austere unpretentious noise.

Everything just builds and builds. Just when you think that the chaos on stage cannot get any more anarchic, Vanik finds himself a new amp to hurl himself off or Athenar performs a particularly complex scissor kick while simultaneously thumping the bass and growling into the mic. For what is essentially a one-person studio project (Athenar plays every instrument on the albums) this is the most tightly connected band that you will ever witness. They interact with each other and the audience with such lustful passion that it really feels inconceivable that the music is homogeneously created by a single person locked in a home studio.

As they bound into ‘Satanic Royalty’ they promise that there is three more, but then promptly change their mind and make pledges for another seven tracks. The songs career out at such an immense pace that is hard to keep a mental note of what they have played and what they haven't. But when shows are performed with as much astonishing abandonment as this the contents of the set lists doesn't matter. It's about the feel and the rhythmic audacity of the sound as opposed to what a particular piece may or may not be called.

We may have got the promised seven, we may have not. The honest truth is we all lost count but that doesn't take away from how incredible Midnight are this evening. Things finally come to a crescendo as Athenar hurls his bass to the ground and Vanick takes one last leap from a piece of stage furniture and the unnamed drummer casually wanders into the audience. Then with impassioned fist bumps and ruffles of hair, they take one last embrace with the audience and exit the stage. We wander out of rebellion punch-drunk and still not quite sure what we have witnessed.

Rock 'n' roll has become so sanitised and so mainstreamed that it takes the wanton disarray and turmoil of Midnight to remind us that it isn't a domesticated animal that sleeps tamely alongside us. It is a tempestuous and insatiable beast that needs to be able to revel its primal frenzied beauty. Tonight, we witness that absolute raw unhinged abandonment in spades and it is utterly astonishing.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Midnight, Cyclone, High Command