
The Poisoned Ascendancy Tour; Trivium, Bullet For My Valentine, Orbit Culture – Coop Live Arena, Manchester; 30.01.2025
1st February 2025 0 By Oli Gonazlez2005… The world of music sure was a different place then. The word ‘Spotify’ was neither in the dictionary nor a concept at this point. Whilst MP3 players were relatively new (remember them?!), physical media was still king. Helena Paparizou secured the Eurovision Song Contest title for Greece, whilst 50 Cent, Kanye West, and Mariah Carey were among the hottest entities in the industry.
2005 marked a seismic shift in the world of metal and heavy music. A year in which a young band from Florida, USA were making a loud enough noise for the rest of the industry to stop and take notice. Trivium. Following on from their fierce debut album “Ember To Inferno” in late 2003, they well and truly marked their arrival on March 15th 2005 with “Ascendancy”. Consequently, the likes of ‘Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr’ and ‘Like Light To Flies’ dominated radio and television for several months, becoming instant classics in the process. Similarly, Bullet For My Valentine also caused a stir for all the right reasons with their release of “The Poison”. The cultural impact of the band was undeniable with young people up and down the country draped in their merchandise, alongside “Tears Don’t Fall” and “All These Things I Hate” featuring heavily on our airwaves.
The time had come for The Poisoned Ascendancy tour. Both of these heavyweights finally joined forces to celebrate the respective 20 year anniversaries for both of their seminal albums, touring the land with full length playthroughs sets. On a personal level, I never thought I’d get the chance to see one of these albums played live in full, let alone both. I recall sprinting home from school as a teenager, desperate to listen to both on my CD player, and escape from a world of Pythagoras, Shakespeare, and the periodic table of elements. Now on this night, the opportunity to escape the rigours of adult life to immerse myself in both at the Coop Live Arena was truly salivating, as it would surely be for the 20,000 or so in attendance. Christmas had gone, the gloom of January was shifting and that sweet payday had come. A rare occasion in which the arena was younger than the artists playing in it, though the impressive modern infrastructure offered a more than adequate setting for tonight’s festivities. After finding my seat and settling in, it was time for the opening act…
Orbit Culture
Having leveled Rebellion on the other side of Manchester a few months earlier, it’s clear that 500-cap venues are now too small for the Orbit Culture! Trivium’s Matt Heafy has spoken of his admiration for the band and offered a personal invitation to make this amongst the first of arena shows for the Swedish act. How would they handle this step up?
Very well it would seem! I mean, this is Orbit Culture after all! Despite being crammed into edges of the stage, their sound and energy projected flawlessly about the arena as they ripped through the likes of ‘Vulture Of The North‘ and ‘From The Inside‘. It was barely 7 o’clock yet the pits (plural) were well and truly open for business! Some logistic issues meant no photos are available for the band, though hopefully this brief description is sufficient for you to envision the chaos ensuing.
It’s hard to stand out in this industry, especially given the depth of talent from the Nordic nation of Sweden and the subsequent huge reputation for Orbit Culture to uphold. However, they have found a niche with their bruising array of chest thumping rhythms combined with anthemic and soaring choruses that are winning them legions of fans! 30 minutes felt far too short of an opening set but left many hungry and wanting more!
Bullet For My Valentine
The lights went down, a video emerged on the screens documenting an early history of the band, making this already monumental occasion feel even more special.
“Bullet! Bullet! Bullet!”
The ensuing fans’ screams were becoming deafening. Still in the infancy of the set, the opening riff to “Her Voice Resides” was enough to send the temporarily out of commission pits right into business once again. If someone had managed to smuggle a cat into the standing area, there’d be no room to swing it; it was packed!
What about the crowd singing the chorus to ‘4 Words (To Choke Upon) in grotesquely wonderful unison ? This was nothing compared to the reaction to ‘Tears Don’t Fall’, featuring just Matt Tuck against the world with his mic and his guitar minus the distortion for the opening verse. It was raw, almost beautiful, and certainly an unexpected yet welcome surprise! As was the site of the pit reaching critical mass and threatening to swallow the entire arena later in the set.
An entire playthrough of “The Poison” featuring a good old sing along to ‘All These Things I Hate About Me’ wasn’t enough to satiate this rabid crowd, and more contemporary fan favourites such as ‘Waking The Demon’ were needed.
I could write many more analogies to explain why this was a special set. But let’s just say that this simply served as a reminder that Bullet hold a special place in British music history and are amongst the finest exports the island has ever produced!
Trivium
No gimmicks, no fluff, just straight into ‘The End Of Everything’ bellowing across the arena PA, serving as the instrumental opening track to simply one of the best metal albums of all time! It was finally happening, and the crowd (or Shogunate) were well and truly ready. So much so, frontman Matt Heafy was temporarily relieved of his vocal duties as the Shogunate took over the soaring chorus to ‘Pull Harder On The Strings of Your Martyr’, with the ensuing echo ringing throughout the arena impossible to ignore.
A much needed break followed after the first few songs and when Matt Heafy spoke to his fans, he was met with heat and a chorus of boos. Why? He advised that Glasgow had been the best crowd of this tour so far and laid the gauntlet down for tonight’s Shogunate to outdo their fans north of the border! Would Manchester rise to this challenge? Well, residents in east Manchester may have felt a minor earthquake at roughly 10pm. This would have been the rumble caused by several thousand people bouncing and jumping together during ‘Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation’. This combined with two circle pits becoming one during ‘The Deceived’ (an awesome sight in the safety of the seated area) quickly led to Matt retracting his statement about Glasgow being the superior crowd, dubbing Manchester the ‘capital of circle pits’ in the process!
Now, for a moment of pure magic. Matt spoke of the challenges in writing ‘Departure’ (a criminally underrated anthem I might add) given the sheer emotional weight and intensity. He spoke of how his fans were his guiding light during this time, especially those in the UK, a country that changed the band’s life. When asked to be his guiding light again, the whole arena was lit by camera phone light upon his request. This created a truly beautiful and almost religious moment in the normally calm and lifeless steel shell that is the Coop Arena! One of many ‘I was there moments’ with the subsequent camera phone footage flooding social media stories and posts.
Matt spoke of his admiration for the city of Manchester, having been amazed that they sold out a 300 person show earlier in their career here. This felt surreal as he was saying this in front of 20,000+ fans on a monumental career defying co-headline arena tour. It feels crazy to think that the band are still so young, with many currently below the age of 40. Will we see 30th, 40th, or even 50th year anniversary “Ascendancy” sets.
Words by Oli Gonzalez, Photos by Laura Thomason
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