SOULFLY
PLUS: Revoker
O2 Academy Islington, London
17/05/2010

Words: Andy Whittle Photos: Daniel Gray

Tonight marked the return of Brazilian/American metallers Soulfly to London on the 2nd  show of their UK tour. First up tonight were Revoker, hailing from Wales. The band seem to go down fairly well amongst a few less-than-sober patrons, but they just came across as a poor man’s Machine Head. The vocals were mundane and almost identical to that of Rob Flynn’s. Having said this, front man Jamie Mathias pumps every ounce that his audience were ever going to give him, gaining a large response on the not at all cliché heavy metal chant of “HEY! HEY! HEY!” It proves interesting to see a band who haven’t even released an album yet supporting a band as big as Soulfly and also being booked to play Download festival. Something doesn’t seem quite right, there.

After just one support act tonight, it’s time for headliners Soulfly to take the stage. The audience comes alive, making it difficult to even stand at the side of the venue without being beaten to a pulp by the sea of surrounding bodies. The band open with ‘Blood Fire War Hate’ with a chorus consisting of the aforementioned words being roared fairly loudly by front man Max Cavalera and his adoring crowd. Cavalera doesn’t even have to work for his audience’s response and it shows. Either he’s a great front man or he’s slipped into just being lazy. Personally, it seems the latter as Max’s band mates storm around the stage with bassist Bobby Burns rocking out and guitarist Marc Rizzo roundhouse-kicking the air at intermittent points. Max stands relatively still, adorned with his famous ESP Brazilian flag signature guitar and just strums with his right hand doing absolutely nothing whatsoever with his left. The man is dull at best, but maybe that’s his style. Most people would probably be less than alive with the amount of weed smoke coming from that tour bus. Having said all of these, the songs are all performed to a good standard, especially considering they don’t rehearse at all. It has a sort of charming feel about it, like days of old when music was more about playing than polished and sparkling recordings. The band then churn out fan-favourites ‘Prophecy’, ‘Primitive’ and ‘Seek N Strike’. The crowd absolutely lose their minds and become an almost unstoppable force, much to the dismay of the security; who have to deal with countless crowd surfers. The seventh song is Sepultura (Max’s former band) classic ‘Refuse/Resist’ which is definitely a highlight of the set, alongside their cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Symptom of the Universe’ and even bigger Sepultura classic ‘Roots Bloody Roots’. Maybe it’s worrying that highlights of the set were of songs which weren’t Soulfly’s own, or maybe it’s just personal taste. It’s most probably the latter, as the maniacal audience of 500-600 would probably all say. One thing’s for sure from tonight: nu-metal definitely still definitely has an audience, even though it’s no longer at the pinnacle of its popularity.

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