TRIVIUM - LONDON, UK.
Trivium at the Eventim Apollo, London (15/01/2023).
with support from Heaven Shall Burn and Malevolence.
Images by: Miriam Demir.
TRIVIUM
HEAVEN SHALL BURN
MALEVOLENCE
Trivium are a heavy metal band from the US, and well known to the metal community. Since the release of their debut album ‘Ember to Inferno’ in 2003, their popularity has continued to rise, especially with the critically acclaimed album ‘The Sin and the Sentence’ in 2017 which gained even more traction for the band. Trivium hit the ground running in 2023 with their UK tour making two stops in Dublin with a different set list for each night, continuing on through Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and drawing to a close in London. Their London show was originally being held at the O2 Brixton Academy, however after recent events, it was moved over to the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo instead.
If I had to describe Trivium’s London gig with one word, it would be ‘carnage’, in the most amazing way. Trivium made the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith shake on Sunday night, with their sold out London date and two cracking support bands. Malevolence and Heaven Shall Burn came through to support Trivium on their UK tour dates, and boy did they deliver. Alex Taylor of Malevolence and Marcus Bischoff of Heaven Shall Burn both had such a great stage presence. At some points it felt like a triple headliner, rather than supporting bands, as the overall support and enthusiasm in the building never wavered from band to band. I often wonder if support bands will be overlooked at gigs with such huge headliners, but this was no issue for these bands; the energy never even wavered between sets.
Onto Trivium themselves. As they began their set, the crowd showed absolutely no sign of letting up, as crowd surfers flew above our heads throughout the entire show. There was a mosh or circle pit of some description for each and every song. It was only after seeing footage taken from a higher perspective on Instagram after the show that it became apparent just how crazy the mosh pits were at this show; it was just incredible to see. As this was Trivium’s first London gig in 5 years due to their tour being postponed by the pandemic, the energy in the venue was just infectious. Heafy had the crowd totally drawn in and giving it their all from the get-go, with such high spirits in the venue from start to finish. Their setlist included a lot of their newer material such as ‘Catastrophist’ and ‘Amongst the Shadows and the Stones’, with a couple of their older songs in there too to appease those die hard fans like ‘Down from the Sky’.
Matt Heafy was killing it, engaging with the crowd at every given opportunity. As they made their way towards the halfway point of their set, Trivium brought out a couple of familiar faces to perform ‘The Deceived’ - Alex Taylor and Josh Baines of Malevolence joined the band on stage and it was a moment to behold. The band were jumping, the crowd were jumping and you must have been able to hear the cheers from the other side of London. This was closely followed by ‘In the Court of the Dragon’ and then ‘To the Rats’ which went down very well. Fans were ‘Drowning in the Sound’ of Trivium’s perfectly curated setlist of newer music, intertwined with some of their 2006-2008 bangers in there too. As the gig came to a close, Trivium saved one of their greatest songs to round up the whole experience. As they played ‘Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr’, the metal community came together in applause, screams, whistles and of course devil horns. If you haven’t experienced Trivium playing live yet, I’d highly recommend adding them to your gig bucket list.
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