Live review : While She Sleeps (The Haunt, Brighton)
03:59
The past week has been extremely important for me. I have come back to Brighton after a week and a half of being home in France, and I have moved hostels, leaving a place where I felt miserable and uncomfortable behind me. As I try hard to leave these hardships behind and start over from scratch once again, as I try to deal with the frustration and the anger and the pain, there is, as always, only one thing that is guaranteed to bring me comfort.
You guessed it.
Live music. (I'm a little predictable, I know)
I have talked about While She Sleeps quite a lot in this blog. Brainwashed is my favourite release of 2015 and some of the times I have seen them in the past year have been amongst my favourite gigs (namely their headliner at the London Forum). After they had toured with Welsh titans Bullet For My Valentine, I had hoped they would do a headline tour before the end of the Brainwashed cycle, and my prayers have been answered when they announced their small tour, which was pleasantly stopping by Brighton's Haunt on the 23rd of March.
I love the Haunt, I really do. It's a venue for small, sweaty gigs, heavy bands and people jumping on your feet after they've crowdsurfed. I was half expecting to leave my life, there, to be honest.
The evening started with local hardcore band Negative Measures. As someone has said somewhere on social media, it was pleasing to see the opening slot being handed to a hardcore band and not a metalcore outfit. Don't get me wrong, I love my metalcore, but the amount of young people I've seen trying very hard to be whoever's famous at the moment knows no bounds, and I was excited for something different.
I wasn't disappointed either. As I have said about a whole lot of younger bands, I love the sheer enthusiasm and joy of being on a stage, and the cramming of everything the frontman will think about in between songs. I love that. And, in Negative Measures' case, I love the energy - how raw and so obviously passionate it was. That's what I need to see in a band. Passion. And there were a whole lot of it. See you soon and all that.
Second band up is Sworn To Oath, who are from Stoke on Trent (usually, places where bands come from rarely stick with me, but Stoke on Trent? I was there for half a day, once, and it was more than enough for me. They have a place called Cheeky Disco and one called Lads Pad on the same street, I think that says everything) and play a quite excellent brand of metal. I think that's what I like with While She Sleeps supports - you never know what to expect and they always think outside the box. They never go for whoever's getting big at the moment and that's what I adore. So, here's to you, Sleeps.
I very much enjoyed Sworn To Oath, and considering the reaction in the crowd, I think I wasn't the only one. The vocals are impeccable and so distinctive, and there's something original about the way the melodies and songs were constructed - something that made me stay, that kept my attention. And, yeah, I very much liked it. See you soon, I hope.
I have no cool story of how me and While She Sleeps started. There was no girl in the street with a guitar case and a sticker, there was no sort of ex whatever. There was just Scott from Bleed From Within in a While She Sleeps t-shirt the first times I saw them and there was the Damage Festival in Paris, where I notably was sick, almost passed out and almost head butted Loz Taylor underneath the merch table as he was trying to get out of the merch area and I probably dropped something. Or something. (I was the kind of sick that caused me to forget a big chunk of that day)
Since then, there was Download 2014 and me asserting that yes, I do love While She Sleeps, which awarded me a "your music taste is perfect" from sort of ex whatever, and there was me deciding to give them more serious attention. It seemed like a logical thing to do.
And then Brainwashed was released and "more serious attention" became trips to the UK to see them, queuing an hour and sacrificing Moose Blood twice to see them at Slam Dunk, and their sophomore record on repeat for a little more than a year, now. I simply adore everything about that band - how simple and down to Earth they are, and the way they do things, the way they just magic homemade merch out of nowhere if need be, the way they're building their own studio by themselves... It blows my mind. They're a fairly big band, they've headlined the Forum in London, they have been second to headliner on the Pit at Reading & Leeds. They're fairly well known. And yet they still do all these DIY things. And it blows my mind.
I bought my ticket to the Haunt at the end of November 2015 and it was four months of excitation and counting down the days until the gig. Yes, it was THAT kind of show - the one that leaves you eagerly waiting until the D-Day and when it's the day, you can't quite comprehend it is and even the people in Sleeps merch and the ones stretching behind you, getting ready for the pit, don't look real.
And a month later, it still doesn't feel real.
I'll tell you one thing about the way seeing Sleeps makes me feel - they make me feel alive, because they are one of the most passionate bands I have ever had the pleasure of seeing live. As soon as they walk on stage and you hear the drums, you hear the vocals, you hear the guitars, you hear the bass, you also hear the passion, and that's what I love about them. They are not a half-arsed band only in it for the image or to make you pay for a bloody meet and greet. They are in it for the passion.
And yes, they make me feel alive. When I stand in the room and they belt out Brainwashed (which is a song made for headbanging, I clearly refuse to believe they had anything else in mind when they made it) or This Is The Six, when the crowd goes mental at Seven Hills, when they explode with raw emotion with Our Courage, Our Cancer (yes, just like I had done at the Forum, of course I ugly cried, who do you think I am), when they close with the still stunning Four Walls, I feel like nothing can ever stop me, and I sing so loudly I leave my vocal chords in my wake, and I feel it. And that is why I love heavy music, and this is why I love While She Sleeps. The sheer intensity of it.
They also are an incredible live band, and one that is slightly underrated to my taste. You know, when magazines decide to elect the best live bands and it's all fan voted, so obviously the ones with millions of likes on Facebook win? It always makes me mad, because they always overlook While She Sleeps. But go and see anyone else, and you will have a damn hard time finding that passion anywhere else, finding another frontman who walks on the crowd and climbs the venue before jumping back in the audience like it's a damn swimming pool, finding another musician crowdsurfing to the bar and back, finding such hard hitting yet technically precise music. That passion, man, and that talent. I can't think of a whole lot of bands whose talent and whose passion are that inseparable. They truly are one of a kind.
As frontman Loz Taylor said on stage, the band is working on the follow up to Brainwashed. Will it be incredible? I don't doubt it for a second. Will I be there for the ride just like I was for Brainwashed? Of course. I'm in this until the very end. It's time for Sleeps to go create some more magic and I, for one, am already eager to hear what they will come up with.
Second band up is Sworn To Oath, who are from Stoke on Trent (usually, places where bands come from rarely stick with me, but Stoke on Trent? I was there for half a day, once, and it was more than enough for me. They have a place called Cheeky Disco and one called Lads Pad on the same street, I think that says everything) and play a quite excellent brand of metal. I think that's what I like with While She Sleeps supports - you never know what to expect and they always think outside the box. They never go for whoever's getting big at the moment and that's what I adore. So, here's to you, Sleeps.
I very much enjoyed Sworn To Oath, and considering the reaction in the crowd, I think I wasn't the only one. The vocals are impeccable and so distinctive, and there's something original about the way the melodies and songs were constructed - something that made me stay, that kept my attention. And, yeah, I very much liked it. See you soon, I hope.
I have no cool story of how me and While She Sleeps started. There was no girl in the street with a guitar case and a sticker, there was no sort of ex whatever. There was just Scott from Bleed From Within in a While She Sleeps t-shirt the first times I saw them and there was the Damage Festival in Paris, where I notably was sick, almost passed out and almost head butted Loz Taylor underneath the merch table as he was trying to get out of the merch area and I probably dropped something. Or something. (I was the kind of sick that caused me to forget a big chunk of that day)
Since then, there was Download 2014 and me asserting that yes, I do love While She Sleeps, which awarded me a "your music taste is perfect" from sort of ex whatever, and there was me deciding to give them more serious attention. It seemed like a logical thing to do.
And then Brainwashed was released and "more serious attention" became trips to the UK to see them, queuing an hour and sacrificing Moose Blood twice to see them at Slam Dunk, and their sophomore record on repeat for a little more than a year, now. I simply adore everything about that band - how simple and down to Earth they are, and the way they do things, the way they just magic homemade merch out of nowhere if need be, the way they're building their own studio by themselves... It blows my mind. They're a fairly big band, they've headlined the Forum in London, they have been second to headliner on the Pit at Reading & Leeds. They're fairly well known. And yet they still do all these DIY things. And it blows my mind.
I bought my ticket to the Haunt at the end of November 2015 and it was four months of excitation and counting down the days until the gig. Yes, it was THAT kind of show - the one that leaves you eagerly waiting until the D-Day and when it's the day, you can't quite comprehend it is and even the people in Sleeps merch and the ones stretching behind you, getting ready for the pit, don't look real.
And a month later, it still doesn't feel real.
I'll tell you one thing about the way seeing Sleeps makes me feel - they make me feel alive, because they are one of the most passionate bands I have ever had the pleasure of seeing live. As soon as they walk on stage and you hear the drums, you hear the vocals, you hear the guitars, you hear the bass, you also hear the passion, and that's what I love about them. They are not a half-arsed band only in it for the image or to make you pay for a bloody meet and greet. They are in it for the passion.
And yes, they make me feel alive. When I stand in the room and they belt out Brainwashed (which is a song made for headbanging, I clearly refuse to believe they had anything else in mind when they made it) or This Is The Six, when the crowd goes mental at Seven Hills, when they explode with raw emotion with Our Courage, Our Cancer (yes, just like I had done at the Forum, of course I ugly cried, who do you think I am), when they close with the still stunning Four Walls, I feel like nothing can ever stop me, and I sing so loudly I leave my vocal chords in my wake, and I feel it. And that is why I love heavy music, and this is why I love While She Sleeps. The sheer intensity of it.
They also are an incredible live band, and one that is slightly underrated to my taste. You know, when magazines decide to elect the best live bands and it's all fan voted, so obviously the ones with millions of likes on Facebook win? It always makes me mad, because they always overlook While She Sleeps. But go and see anyone else, and you will have a damn hard time finding that passion anywhere else, finding another frontman who walks on the crowd and climbs the venue before jumping back in the audience like it's a damn swimming pool, finding another musician crowdsurfing to the bar and back, finding such hard hitting yet technically precise music. That passion, man, and that talent. I can't think of a whole lot of bands whose talent and whose passion are that inseparable. They truly are one of a kind.
As frontman Loz Taylor said on stage, the band is working on the follow up to Brainwashed. Will it be incredible? I don't doubt it for a second. Will I be there for the ride just like I was for Brainwashed? Of course. I'm in this until the very end. It's time for Sleeps to go create some more magic and I, for one, am already eager to hear what they will come up with.
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