Knocked Loose, Deafheaven and Headbussa @ Live Music Hall (Cologne)

What a way to start off a week: a bruising Hardcore sandwich with Post-Black Metal beauty in the centre. Knocked Loose guesting at the Live Music Hall in Cologne and taking Deafheaven and Headbussa with them. 

Headbussa opened that evening with their Paris-blend of metallic Hardcore. From the get-go the band delivered grooving, positive Hardcore. While the singer was doing gymnastics on stage, the crowd was moving and getting warmed up in the pit.

The audience was ready for this musical equivalent of a frowning face you could sense immediately the band’s urge to take the crowd by storm and make their name known. After many circle-pits, mosh-parts and bouncing, everyone was well prepared getting their, maybe first ever, dose of Black Metal.

Next up were Deafheaven. What seems to be an odd choice for a main support, proved to be a great opportunity for them to win over some new fans and certainly added to the variety of the billing.

Instead of promoting their last album Infinite Granite they started right off with “Brought to the water“, the opener of the great New Bermuda. Still celebrating the 10th anniversary of Sunbather the title track and “Dream House” were put into the setlist. The first one being one of my personal all-time-favorites by Deafheaven and the latter one being the first and most known introduction to them for a lot of people. Drenched in warm orange light, wave after wave of soaring riffs and shrieking vocals washed over the audience.

At first it seemed that Deafheaven maybe would not win over the crowd, but maybe it was the Champagne Supernova-outro of “Gift for the earth” that finally won them over… or it was the full on Black Metal of the following “Black Brick”. The aforementioned “Dream House” closed their set and judging by the applause and movement, it was a very good idea to expose them to a “Hardcore-congregation”.

Set list Deafheaven:
Brought to the Water 
Sunbather
Gifts for the Earth 
Black Brick 
Dream House

Upon entering the stage Knocked Loose looked like a feral animal ready to get unleashed. You could feel the room getting smaller since a permanent mosh-pit was opening right when the intro started and it wouldn’t close until Knocked Loose were finished.

When the first seconds of “Deep in the willow” started, people split and the energy discharged immediately. Followed by “Where light divides the Holler” and “God knows“, this trias of the newer Knocked Loose paved the way for a set of old (A different shade of blue) and very old songs (Laugh tracks and Pop culture).

Although the newer tracks were greeted with great enthusiasm (to put it mildly), the reaction to the older songs was health-threatening if you got yourself caught in the front rows: “All my friends“, “Mistakes like fractures” or the 1-2-combo of “Billy no mates” and “Counting worms” (ARF ARF) were definitive highlights.

“Blinding Faith” was the first harbinger of the upcoming new album yet to be announced. “Crushed by the fist of God on a Monday evening” would have also been a fitting title: the ending mosh-part is surely leveling a lot of ground. Stylistically it taps the same vein as “Deep in the willow” or “Everything is quiet now“.

“Everything is quiet now” closed the evening with the biggest wall of death of the show. Although the crowd was certainly ready for an encore, it would be hard to top that finale. This concert was a powerful demonstration why Knocked Loose are where they are: at the front of a new generation of border-defying Hardcore bands. The new album You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To will be a testimony to that.

Setlist Knocked Loose:
Deep in the willow 
Where light divides the Holler 
God knows 
Deadringer 
Trapped in the grasp of a memory 
Belleville
Denied by fate 
Oblivion’s peak 
Blinding faith
All my friends
And still I wonder south 
Mistakes like fractures 
Billy no mates
Counting worms
Everything is quiet now