Thursday 18 August 2016

Sick Of It All @ Voodoo Lounge Dublin. 17 August 2016. Live Review


Review by Pascal Derrien

There are days that are better than others and Wednesday 17th of August 2016 was one of them. Having had my Live Review pass cleared @ the entrance of the Voodoo Lounge I found myself buying a tonic water @ the bar and remembered that the last time I saw Sick of It All on stage was probably in 1991 somewhere in Belgium so there were a lot of expectations on my end.

Before the main act came on stage around 9.30 we had two local bands (Ireland) as appetizers: Breed the Killers with an interesting Misfits cover in their set and if you are a fan, you may just as well know that this was the last gig of their lead vocalist. Bailer followed and was definitely in a league above, charismatic singer and the songs are a bit more entertaining while honestly I cannot say I got overexcited by their performance either.

Voodoo Lounge is not super ideal for this type of bands and their audience especially. If you don’t like stage diving into concrete pillars. But before I speak about the band: one note about the audience who was in a very good spirit and not overly alcoholised (or else :)) which led everybody to enjoy the show comfortably. There was some happy diving and other nice gestures from the multifaceted crowd including a strong representation of NY HC fans.

Wow - it started very strongly from the get go. Lou Koller and his brother are so energetic on stage. It was refreshing, awesome - a killer gig, super-duper whatever word you may want to use. There is no escape from this in your face live act. It is fun too when Pete (guitar) seems entertain a private stage game with the bassist Craig on who will reach one corner the fastest. One thing for sure is that the four of them are super happy to be on stage and are building a strong relationship with their audience anything from cracking jokes, taking requests and even making sure everybody was safe during Wall of Death.

A lot of super titles, obviously Step Down, Sanctuary but also some good oldies from their first album made sure every fan had a great evening. What a show guys!!! I must say this was sleek and enthusiastic and it brought a smile to my face to witness the great communion between the band and the mosh pit but this is HC for you man you may say!! It really hit home and helped me to contextualize and realize why I have heard so many times: that some bands have instructed their booking agents not to pitch a slot with SOIA so much... Their energy level is high, easy to guess that poseurs would make a pale figure in comparison.

The level of integrity of this band, after all those years, is second to none and if I judge by the sweating aspect of the exercise you could load tons of buckets of integrity in the time they have spent on Dublin’s stage.

Fair to say that a lot of people had seen SOIA before Wednesday but for those who did not: there is no doubt they will do it again in the future and I think I would not be surprised if we were on our way towards a 35th anniversary tour :).

Listen - they keep getting better and better and Lou repeatedly thanked the crowd numerous times. But I cannot help thinking that Dublin is being by-passed so many times by bands... it should probably be us who should be grateful. I have enjoyed the show immensely and once the big lights were on they spent quite some time chatting, getting pictures or signing SOIA artefacts and various merchandising items with the folks who came to see them.

For that and for a super show: on behalf of us I want to say - THANK YOU LOU!

PS: if you have missed them I hate to say but....too bad :)







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