It’s been years since the nu metal boom, and today’s youth probably haven’t a clue who half the bands on this show’s bill are. Appealing to the 20-40 somethings looking for a night of harking back to their teenage years, the floor ended up surprisingly jam packed.

Supported by Dope, best known for two cover tracks and cheerful number ‘Die Mother Fucker Die’, The Defiled, a band that leaves you wondering if the keyboardist actually knows how to play that thing or just likes to throw it around the stage, and Soil, one of the remaining shining lights in an ageing genre.

In 2012 Soil kicked up a fuss at C2 as the headline act, which is exactly what they should be, the headline act. Hard and fast, these guys stole the show, giving it their all with masses of respect to the crowd with frontman Ryan McCombs taking them on head to head in the pit during their 2001 breakthrough track ‘Halo’.

Dropping their first load of new material in over thirteen years, Coal Chamber gave the crowd what they wanted, the classics. Though the new stuff was solid, and in some cases more audible than the oldies, the fresh sound got people hitting the bar rather than the pit. Overall the set fell flat, and even when crammed up against the beer soaked barrier the band felt distant, interacting with the crowd with a little bog standard banter, but nothing more.

This was a showcase of a dying scene, and though some of these acts may have hit their high years ago, it also proved that some still have some fight left in ’em.

Concorde 2, Thursday 28th May 2015
Words and photos by Charles Shepherd