Now the Southampton Guildhall is a big venue and is one that not many UK bands could fill let alone sell the place out over a month before the gig. This just shows what a massive success Funeral For A Friend have become over the past couple of years and they are one of the biggest bands in the UK at the moment and on this tour they have some good bands supporting them as well in the form of Bullet For My Valentine and A Static Lullaby. This show isn’t a one off either, this is just one of many massive shows on this first sell out UK tour since the release of their new album ‘Hours’. So will the fans react as well to the new songs and they do the old favourites.
The night kicked off with Gratitude as the opening band but unfortunately I didn’t get to see them as I didn’t feel like queuing in the rain so we spent the first hour in the pub across the road and waited until the queue had gone and then just walked straight in. So A Static Lullaby were the first band on and were really impressive. They are a band that I hadn’t really heard much of before but I will definitely be checking them out now. There were a few too many unnecessary screams in some of the songs but apart from that they played an excellent set and I’m sure they won quite a few new fans tonight.
Bullet For My Valentine were the main support tonight and came on to a rapturous applause from the crowd, from the reaction they got you would have thought they were the headliners tonight. The welsh metal-core boyos kicked straight in with ‘Hand Of Blood’ which sent the crowd wild and that’s when we saw the first mosh pits of the evening. They played the song brilliantly but I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed as it is the bands biggest and most popular song and I felt that it should have been the last song they played, not the first. The rest of their set was excellent as well and they ended on ‘No Control’ which was also amazing and my only complaint from their set was that they should have looked at their set list and turned it upside down as ‘No Control’ would have been better to start with and ‘Hand Of Blood’ would have been an amazing song to end on.
Finally it’s time for the headliners and it’s obvious by the atmosphere that people really can’t wait for them to get onto the stage. When they finally came on there was a massive cheer and they kicked off with ‘Juneau’ which sounded amazing apart from the fact that there was a bit more screaming from drummer and scream artist Ryan Richards than there is on the recorded version and I didn’t feel it really added anything to the song. Apart from that though I really don’t have any other criticism of their set, they played a 50/50 mix of old and new material and every song sounded brilliant. My personal favourites of the evening were ‘Rookie Of The Year’, ‘The Art Of American Football’ and ‘Streetcar’ which sounded truly awesome tonight and was the real highlight of the show. I also have to give them props for the lighting tonight as they had a full on light show to accompany their performance and it really added to the spectacle of the show.
Tonight was a really great gig with some great bands who all put on a great show. I’m not a fan of shows in big venues but the atmosphere in the massive Southampton Guildhall was amazing and Funeral For A Friend are a truly great band and put on a really great show and after tonight I’m definately going to be getting my tickets to see them again next time around when they headline on the UK leg of the Taste Of Chaos Tour.
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