When I first arrived at the Newcastle University Student Union I was very surprised that out of the two music venues inside the student union, Hell Is For Heroes were set to play in the much smaller top floor bar venue. Justin (singer) from Hell Is For Heroes told me this was because they requested the smaller venue of the two because he wanted this to be a more intimate show and it sure was.
The night started off with Peace Burial At Sea but i was downstairs at the bar at that point so my night started off with Aereogramme, a Scottish experimental rock band who I wasn’t particularly familiar with and I don’t think many other people did either. When they first came on, they seemed a strange choose of support for this entire tour as they all looked over 30 and I really didn’t know what to expect but when they started playing I was pleasantly surprised. They started off with what sounded like a very emotional number but then towards the end the song just totally turned, giving way to a much more post-hardcore sound complete with heavy screams from singer Craig B. It was a good 30 minute set from the Scotsmen but there was an apparent sense of excitement in the air for the headliners.
Hell Is For Heroes came on to a round of applause and you could tell that everyone was glad to see these guys back. They kicked off with the energetic crowd pleaser ‘Out Of Sight’ which had Justin Schlosberg jumping around the stage from the get go, and had security struggling to keep the front barriers from collapsing. The next song was ‘One Of Us’ which is the first single from their forthcoming album due to come out Jan 2005 and it was received just as ecstatically as any of the old stuff and saw Justin do his 1 st of many dives into the crowd this evening. The crowd seemed to really enjoy all the new stuff as new tracks like ‘Disco's and Casino's’ and ‘Folded Paper Figures’ kept the crowd jumping. Other old favourites ‘Three Of Clubs’ and ‘I Can Climb Mountains’ had the crowd going crazy and fighting to get as close to the front as possible. My personal highlight of the night was ‘Five Kids Go’ which isn’t one of my favourite songs from their debut ‘The Neon Handshake’ but it is an emotional rollercoaster of a track and HIFH’s performance of the track tonight was simply breathtaking. The band finished off their set with their new single ‘Kamichi’ which is another beautiful HIFH song with a great melody and breakdown and the crowd clearly loved it.
This tour isn’t just another tour for Hell Is For Heroes, this is the first time that they have played so much of their new material from the new album and it is always a gamble playing new songs that people haven’t heard yet as you might not always get the reaction you wanted. I don’t think HIFH will be disappointed one bit with the crowd reaction tonight, the energy and temperature levels never dropped all night. This was an amazing show and HIFH are a band that know how to put on a show, so despite them not being signed to a major label anymore, don’t expect Hell Is For Heroes to be going anywhere in the near future.
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