COAL CHAMBER+SOIL+THE DEFIELD+DOPE -KOKO, LONDON

Coal Chamber´s Big Truck runs over London!

It feels like the end of Nineties /Early 2000s are back, with SLIPKNOT and KORN touring together and P.O.D playing with ALIENT ANT FARM and HOOBASTANK. Bands that made their name over ten years ago but haven’t quite been relevant in recent times have returned to cause excitement. To join in with this nostalgia trip is COAL CHAMBER, joined by SOIL, THE DEFIELD and DOPE tonight at Koko.

Although in 2013 COAL CHAMBER made a small return in European festivals such as DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL, HELLFEST and GRASSPOP,  it´s been nearly two years gone by.  They have an album recently released Rivals, and finally they have coming back to the UK for a headlining show after fifteen years. Show is sold out. There is so much buzz in the atmosphere around this performance that feels like is going to be crazy night.

It´s sold out tonight, by the time DOPE kick off just twenty minutes after doors were open, the venue was already busy.

It´s the first time the band played in the UK and they were incredibly well-received, their set included songs like “I´m back”, their anthem “Die Motherfucker,Die” along with other hits of the industrial band including Billy Idol’s «Rebel Yell» . DOPE is a band full energy and got the crowd well excited until the end. Words from Edsel Dope “Oh UK ,Where have you been all my life??”.  That is the same questions we ask ourselves about them, they will hopefully return back.

Now is time for the London based band THE DEFIELD. Despite being a largely unfamiliar name to the crowd in attendance, the band throws out «Sleeper» and «As I Drown almost flippantly».

Helped by The AvD, the band’s keyboardist pulling double duty with being the devil’s favourite hype man, they gradually drawing heavily on 2013’s Daggers without a single trip back to debut release Grave Times which is a shame, being the best album of the band and having fantastic tunes like “Call to arms”.

Although they are playing in their home town, audience seem  very disconnected with the band, we could just see people looking at their mobile phones and talking to each other. Londoners will finish their set with «Running In Circles», taken from their untitled upcoming album (recorded in Dave Grohl’s studio in America), sounds promising, right? THE DEFIELD is a fairly new band and no related to the new metal scene, they seemed to be out of place tonight.

SOIL jumps the stage just ten minutes after, one of the bands who are enjoying the recent resurgence of nu-metal. Since they decided to do their anniversary Scars tour in 2011, the band have been non-stop playing around the world ever since, In 2013 they released «Whole» which they played a few songs for it like “The hate song”.

Their set was mostly focused on Scars album; «Breaking Me Down», «Pride» and «Unreal» made the audience go crazy, they know their audience and offer them exactly what they want from the night’s special guests.

SOIL´s set is coming to an ending and «Halo» drums start to play– biggest (and best) track of the band, but we can´t see Mc Coombs! Where is he? He comes down the stage and sings along with the crowd the tune together, not very fair on the rest of the audience who couldn´t see much…(Strange way to perform the most popular song of the band).  SOIL close the night covering Ram Jam’s «Black Betty» and having some kind words to their fans “The music starts with you, the music finishes with you, you can make this happen, Thank you”.

The show is coming to an end, and although all the bands were running on time, it was a bit unfortunate that between bands were only ten minutes difference to set up and star the show, but for the head liners we had to wait a long thirty minutes.  A massive COAL CHAMBER flag came up and some impressive screens were installed for the performance. What kind of show are we about to see?

The mayhem commences with the unmistakable two note riff of «Loco», which gets the room bouncing. It’s followed by another COAL CHAMBER classic, «Big Truck». But surprisingly, given how recent its release, it’s new album Rivals‘ «I.O.U Nothing» that draws the first roar from the audience, testament to the band’s staying power, their new material sounds so good live.

«I.O.U Nothing» snuggles in nicely next to Dark days tracks «Fiend».

One of the best moments of the night was when the lights went off and Miguel Rascon starts playing «Rowboat»; Dez Fafara holds his neon lights handheld speaker to guide us through this boat trip, that unfortunately some technical problems occurs as we couldn´t hear very clearly Fafara´s voice.

His professionalism is stood up when he realised the problem and switch to his microphone straight away…you could tell that no many people notice the incident.

During the show, the screens show us fragments of horror movies and when «Dark days» was played,a video of the members of the band playing with Ouija boards pops up. Scary…isn´t?

COAL CHAMBER only played two tracks from the new album “I.O.U Nothing” and “Rivals” the rest of set was focused in their first record and last record before they decided to part ways.

Only one song from their second album Chamber Music was played “Not living”which I am sure the audience would have liked to hear more tracks from it.

Fafara warns us that the show is coming to an end and there will not be encore as they are not rock stars and this is our last chance to “dance”… futility of encores ahead of «Sway», we could only hear the crowd singing “The roof the roof the roof is on fire…” wall of death and mosh pits during the whole song and after a big applause, COAL CHAMBER say goodbye for tonight.

COAL CHAMBER is here to stay folks.

Author: Patricia Duchamp