You truly had to feel for Crowbar this evening, screwing up the start to their opening song not once, but twice before eventually giving up on it all together. What this meant was that before they’d even got properly started, their backs were well and truly against the ropes. You could tell by the face of guitarist and vocalist Kirk Windstein that he was absolutely pissed, and rightfully so, Crowbar is his passion project and being the only constant member of this band since 1990 gives him complete license to show his infuriation to his band mates. I’d love to say that this was one of those great underdog stories in which they picked themselves up, pulled an absolute blinder of a set and were received like heroes, but, for me at least, I saw no signs of this and it was only during the last song or two, that the band looked like they had fully settled in to the show, but before we knew it, they were out of time.  

Musically, Crowbar are all sound, competent musicians. They have a sound and a niche, and from the 40 or so minutes that we got to see of them, they seldom depart from this formula. If you’re a fan of Sludge, then Crowbar needs no introduction, after all, they are one of the pioneers of the genre. For me however, uninitiated to the intricacies and finer details of sludge, I found it tedious at times. Don’t get me wrong, some of their riffs and ideas were fantastic and they had some really cool shit to play, backed up a pretty strong but by no means perfect rhythm section, however I couldn’t help but feel that there was just a little something missing. Apart from Kirk, who was clearly loving it and had an awesome energy about him, the rest of the band just looked bored and like they just didn’t want to be there. This could’ve been due to the early mistake knocking morale, or for any other reason, however it just really knocked the on-stage energy for me which could’ve really bumped the show up to that next rung on the ladder. In summary, Crowbar were just fine, nothing to write home about, but it wasn’t totally terrible either. 

Before headliners, Sepultura took to the stage we had the mighty Sacred Reich. Like Crowbar and Sepultura, Sacred Reich have been around for a while, 37 years to be precise and have been named as citied as pioneers in the leading of the Second Wave of Thrash. This experience shows, as Sacred Reich put on an absolutely blistering performance. I just loved their mixture of incredible, authentic Thrash, coupled with their vicseral and at times heartfelt politically charged lyrics. It is so easy to draw comparisons between Sacred Reich and bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax etc, because they do have an extremely similar style, however there is just something about Sacred Reich that is a bit different that separates them from their contemporaries. I think this X Factor is vocalist and bassist, Phil Rind. There is something about that guy that I found just so naturally likeable, and you could tell by his mannerisms that he genuinely loved and appreciated every single minute of being on that stage. 

Musically, Sacred Reich were no nonsense, no frills, no bollocks Thrash Metal. Everything was there, the riffs, the solos, the tempo, the ferocity, it was just Thrash, preserved in its original form as if the room was transported back to 1986 all over again. This is to have been expected however, as bar 2019’s “Awakening”, the band had not put out a feature length record since 1996’s “Heal”. As a result of this, technical innovations were off the cards tonight and it is only through letting go of the idea that they had to present a fresh, new look on Thrash that I just found myself standing back and embracing it for what it was, and it was simply fantastic.  

The final band of the night, Sepultura, needs no introduction. They are probably one of the most successful South American bands of all time and have some of the most iconic albums in our world of music. It is hard to deny the strength of “Chaos A.D”., “Roots” and “Beneath The Remains” however, since the 1996 departure of Max Cavalera and the addition of replacement vocalist, Derrick Green, Sepultura have been a band who have struggled to move on and carve their own destiny. Sepultura are on the road tonight in support of their latest album, 2020’s “Quadra”, their 9th release post Max Cavalera, and “Quadra” and its songs, play a huge part in the evening, with 6 of their 17 performed songs coming from this album. What is more interesting to me however, is that bar the title tracks of ‘Machine Messiah’ and ‘Kairos’ being performed, everything else the band chose to perform was pre-1996 Sepultura. It seemed at least for me, that Sepultura are aware of where they stand and almost admit that they’ll never get back to the highs of “Roots” and “Chaos AD”, so they instead opt to just perform tracks from these releases in order to send the crowd home happy. In a way, I had to feel for them a little bit, as Derrick Green has been a vocalist for Sepultura for 25 years now, he should be considered his own entity, rather than the continued persona of “Max Cavalera’s Replacement”. 

Sepultura history lesson aside, tonight was not good. An amalgamation of issues presented themselves tonight which made for an absolutely sloppy performance in my opinion. First of all, was the actual introduction of the show itself. When the house lights go off and the room goes dark, you expect there to be maybe a small introductory track to build anticipation, before the band storm onto stage and completely set the place alight. This is what I was expecting tonight, given the frenzy inducing ferocity of Sepultura’s, I was hoping for the biggest of starts. Instead, what we got, when the house lights dropped and a sole blue light shone onto the backdrop of the stage, was the full rendition of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’. ‘War Pigs’ is an iconic, incredible song, but it’s 8 minutes long. The time between the initial roars from the crowd when the lights went off and the band taking to the stage, in total, was 11 minutes when you include also their song Policia also blared out over the PA System before the band finally took to the stage. This completely and utterly killed the energy and just looking around you could see people on their phones, yawning, going the toilet/bar or whatever, it just wasn’t the high octane start I was hoping for.  

When the band took to the stage, the issues didn’t stop there. I just found the sound to be absolutely terrible, with guitars taking precedent in the mix over anything else. I couldn’t hear vocalist Derrick Green whatsoever, even in between songs when the music had stopped and he was just doing some talking to the crowd. I initially thought that it may just have been as a result of me standing directly in front of the guitar as to why it was overwhelming, however after taking up multiple spots across the Ritz, the sound was just as bad everywhere else. The difficulty with the guitar being the most prevelant focus in the mix is that it brings to fruition some of the problems Sepultura has, primarily being, they just lack any form of depth. Now don’t get me wrong, Andreas Kisser can shred and can hold his own against some of the best guitarists out there, but he is just not complemented by the rest of the band whatsoever. His guitar solos feel almost isolated, with basic basslines not doing much in the way of adding that additional dimension needed to make Kissers work on the guitar sound gargantuan. If there was an additional rhythm guitar added, to give the music that extra kick up the arse then it may have worked, but, for me at least, it just fell that little bit flat. 

That’s not to say, however, there weren’t any positive takeaways from the night, as there really were. One thing I really love about Sepultura is the way they incorporate traditional South American percussion and add it into their music to provide this incredible clash of style and culture, and we were treated to that in spades. Sepultura have a genuinely special drummer in Eloy Casagrande, and he was certainly the standout performer on that stage tonight. He was as tight as they come, masterfully incorporated an array of traditional drumming techniques whilst at the same time applying a more conventional metal drumming style, and despite the poor sound mix, still stood out amongst the rest of it. What is also hard to deny, is that Sepultura have the songs. Now I know I mentioned that they are a band struggling to break out of the shadow of Max and Igor Cavalera, but when confronted with songs such as ‘'Refuse/Resist’, ‘Roots Bloody Roots’, ‘Propaganda’, it is easy to see why they don’t want to leave that part of the bands history behind, as they’re some of the finest metal songs written, and are definitely a sight to behold when performed live. 

All in all, tonight was just not doing it for me. Sacred Reich were simply stunning and they have definitely found a new fan in myself, however Crowbar and Sepultura left a lot to be desired in my opinion. Crowbar is just something that just wouldn’t resonate personally with me, however the adoration they received by the crowd, even after a series of unfortunate mistakes, is a testament to how beloved they are, and I, nor anyone else can take that away from them. It was hard to tell with Sepultura whether or not this was just an off night for them as a result of sound not being on their side or maybe even a bit of ring rust, this tour has been rescheduled multiple times, however it unfortunately just didn’t cut it for me.  

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!