Enforcer - Live at the Underworld

A mere day's rest and I'm backing gigging at my favourite haunt yet again! This time to catch a three band true and classic metal bill led by Enforcer and ably supported by Skull Fist and Venderbuyst. As it turns out there was a fourth band on the bill as well called Genghis Khan. Unfortunately they played to precisely 6 people as most either hadn't turned up yet or didn't give too much of a toss. However yours truly is duty bound to witness and report on every band on the bill.

Genghis Khan played trad metal with Maiden influence. The singer had an accent and looked either Greek or Italian. His voice was ok but nothing amazing. The band were actually quite cool although they had a very young guitarist who never made the slightest eye contact or show of his guitar licks like a confident young buck guitarist would. Still GK were ok with some nice galloping riffs and an acceptable start for this night of classic metal.

Next up were the Dutch trio of classic rock/metal Vanderbuyst. I've never heard of these guys but they were quite fun. They were the least metallic band of the night, instead focusing on hard rock licks and groove riffs to get the heads bobbing by the slowly filling out crowd as the Vanderbuyst guys were playing to 50-60 now rather than the paltry 6 of the openers. I promise to check these guys out again on record. Live they are\fun indeed. The guitarist is shit hot lead player as well. They went down pretty well with lots of people rocking out to their catchy tunes.

Following swiftly were American trad metallers Skull Fist. In the main they were promoting their new album Chasing The Dream. I like the new album but don't love it. the music is ace of course, only the singer has a very high pitched voice and can tend to sound weak although in the live setting he was pretty cool. Plus he was playing guitar and playing leads as well so a very good effort by him indeed. Their catchy tunes got a huge response with regular shouts of "Skull Fist!" in between songs. A couple of the fast songs got a mini pit starting up as well. Just a fun live set from these yanks with plenty of smiles and catchy riffs galore. Enough to brighten up a boring Monday night anyway!

Finally the roadies got the stage ready for Enforcer and the dry ice machine added a spooky air to the proceedings as the Enforcer guys burst on to the stage and started blasting away like there's no tomorrow. The sound was a touch loud for my taste which resulted in a lack of clarity here and there 'cause the guys play so damn fast. It's like they take the already very fast speed metal Maiden on acid songs and speed them up a touch! The singer/guitarist is very much a great show man to boot and had the crowd eating out of his hand song after song.

The crowd was well filled out now and I would say well past the 200 mark. The pits got a bit more violent and I found a vantage point of the raised part of the Underworld where I had a great view of the band and the crazy crowd. These guys were going down a complete storm though I must admit I enjoyed Skull Fist a little more than them due to the more melodic nature of the songs. Enforcer are a great band who make solid trad metal albums but maybe they need to tone down some of the speed and brutality live and let the songs breath a little more. But who am I to complain as everyone was going apeshit down the front and headbanging like loons everywhere else. Good night of classic metal all in all.