TRIVIUM

VENUE – O2 Academy Liverpool

DATE – 29^th August 2023

Words and photographs – Graeme Wright

Prime Photographer – Phil Ingham

I’ve said it for a long time now, but the phrase “The Big Four” should have been expanded to “The Big Five” a long time ago and Trivium should have been added to the exalted ranks of those four legendary bands. It’s been a long time since Trivium has played Liverpool and it’s no surprise that this show is long sold out. The reviews have been uniformly ecstatic on this tour and Trivium will have to be at the top of their game after the blistering set from Bleed From Within, but this crowd has every confidence that they will be up to the task.

And….we’re off. The band are straight into ‘In The Court Of The Dragon’, the title song from their 2021 album. Immediately it’s clear that the band are incredibly tight, with a clean guitar sound complementing the vocals of Matt Heafy, who looks lean and fit and is one of the best frontmen in the business. Due to the quality of their songwriting, I’ve always found Trivium to be a touch more accessible to the casual fan than most bands of their ilk and ‘Down From The Sky’ is a case in point. Muscular and powerful, it’s always been one of my favourite tracks from the band and this has the crowd rocking straight from the off.

‘Becoming The Dragon’ was the song that introduced Trivium to a wider audience and it’s clearly a crowd favourite, with the pit being at full throttle and there already a never-ending procession of crowd surfers exiting stage left, just next to my vantage point. ‘Strife’ is a huge crowd favourite and it thunders along here, giving Heafy the chance to show off his melodic range. ‘Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr’ sounds amazing tonight and alcohol is flying through the air towards the mosh pit – it’s like being back in the eighties and takes me back to my formative years even though for me at least my mosh pit days are long gone.

‘Kirisute Gomen’ shows all the power and aggression that the band are renowned for while ‘Torn Between Scylla And Charybdis’ is a thunderous epic track that is pitch-perfect here tonight. ‘Catastrophist’ is aggressive Heavy Metal at its finest and is a touch more mainstream and alternative than most Trivium records if that makes sense. ‘Of Prometheus And The Crucifix’ gives the audience no respite and by this time I’m sweating profusely due to the heat and the feverish atmosphere inside the venue, so I decide to move to the back of the auditorium to get a good view of the crowd antics and to check out the acoustics in the venue ( which have been excellent tonight)

‘Entrance Of The Conflagration’ and ‘’The Calamity’ sound fantastic from this new vantage point and we are now hitting home straight with no sign of a letup in the intensity of both band and audience. ‘The Heart From Your Hate’ is probably the band’s most mainstream and immediate track but the live version is a lot more aggressive and heavy than the studio version, while ‘A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation’ causes absolute mayhem on the dance floor with bodies flying in all directions. The show closes with ‘In Waves’ of course, the band wringing every last drop from this crowd leaving all in attendance feeling spent and satisfied.

After the show, we hook up with Sam, one of the younger members of our crew who had been at the front and he was drenched in sweat, looking like he’d just emerged from the beach from the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan!

This was a fantastic show all around and Trivium proved once again that they are still at the top of the tree within this genre.

Band

Matt Heafy – Vocals/Guitar

Corey Beaulieu – Guitar

Paolo Gregoletto – Bass Guitar

Alex Bent – Drums

SETLIST

1. In The Court Of The Dragon
2. Down From The Sky
3. Becoming The Dragon
4. Strife
5. Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr
6. Kirisute Gomen
7. Torn Between Scylla And Charybdis
8. Catastrophist
9. Of Prometheus And The Crucifix
10. Entrance Of The Conflagration
11. The Calamity
12. The Heart From Your Hate
13. A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation
14. In Waves