Sentient were up first at 9.15pm, This was their first gig, but it really didn't know. A mix of Screamcore with some truely excellent singing made for a good start to the night. Belfast band Zombified came on at 10pm like a heavy metal locomotive, as they growled their way through a powerful set the audience became a sea of wind-milling hair and devil horn hands. There was a slightly worrying moment when the bass amp blew about 20 mins in, perhaps the music was too heavy even for the equipment. Only a few minutes down time and our sound technician for the evening (Dee) was up on stage and had it fixed!
At 11.45pm one of Ireland's biggest thrash metal bands, Gama Bomb hit the stage. Fresh from Bloodstock and with a simple "What's the craic, Belfast?", they were off - they don't call themselves speed-thrash for nothing... Gama Bomb are fast! Each member of Gama Bomb has hair longer than the last, which can only mean one thing, an awful lot of head-banging. Aside from the science fiction inspired lyrics and super fast riffs, Gama Bomb were more talkative than your usual metal band and reminisced with the audience about their 11 years in the business, right back to their first gig at Warzone. My personal favourite tune of the night was Backwards Bible, off their new album The Terror Tapes (which has some amazing artwork on the cover by horror movie poster artist Graham Humpreys), which sounds a bit Iron Maideny if you ask me (Run to the Hills to be exact!).
All in all, this was a great night for any metal fan, or even any fan of NI music. The Empire was the perfect venue and gave the whole night an intimate and interesting atmosphere.
Who wrote this...?
I'm 20 years old, studying Journalism with Photo-Imaging at the University of Ulster Coleraine Campus. I have an undying love for Belfast and all that it has to offer, an undying love for sleeping, Tegan and Sara, trashy tv shows, foreign snack-foods and being irresponsible with money. I also quite like origami, reading, hip-hop, dubstep, anything acoustic and Food Network TV.