Dragonforce @ Newcastle Uni, 01/02/06

Before entering the darkened confines of Newcastle student union’s basement, I had worried that my attempt to bridge the impossibly large gap between indie kid and metaller with a red-shirt/black tie combo might leave me stranded somewhere in Green Day territory, which didn’t strike me as a good place to be in a sea of black clothes, piercings, and long hair. I needn’t of worried, however, as there was a far larger cross-section of people in the audience than I’d anticipated - from surprisingly normal looking people to a party of fans who’d come dressed as Vikings (including some lasses who pulled off the ‘Nordic maiden’ look rather well). Also commonplace among the fans were a variety of plastic weaponry, including swords, axes, and even the odd lightsabre.
No matter what they looked like, however, the fans were all united in their clamouring for the band to appear. As soon as the lights went down, a chant of “Dra-gon-force!” went up throughout the crowd, followed by a mighty roar as they appeared on the stage. Wasting no time, they began with fan favourite ‘My Spirit Will Go On’, and a sea of headbanging, moshing, and sword waving commenced. Frontman ZP Theart then plucked a plastic sword from the crowd to marshal his followers through ‘The Fury Of The Storm’, and they gladly followed him in shouting back every word.
The band started as they meant to go on, with every theatrical song title that Theart announced being met with cheers from the fans. During ‘Operation Ground And Pound’, a gaping hole appeared in the middle of the crowd, only for it to be instantly filled with a swirling, violent mosh pit.
After switching the pace with a cheesy metal ballad, the band briefly leave the stage, only for keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov to re-appear shortly after.“Check out this sick ****!” he cries, before launching into a rapid keyboard solo. While the crowd seem somewhat perplexed at the rave metal style keyboards, a cheer goes up when Pruzhanov incorporates part of ‘The Simpsons’ theme tune into his solo. He’s then joined by guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman, as well as bassist Frédéric Leclercq, and they proceed to assault the crowd with a four-way barrage of rapid-fire musicianship.
Having allowed his band to indulge themselves, Theart returns to the stage to continue the set with ‘Soldiers Of The Wasteland’. It’s at this point that I start to notice that the songs are beginning to sound the same to my uninitiated ear, perhaps due to the percussion overpowering Li and Totman’s skilled guitar playing. However, I seem to be the only one who thinks so, as the crowd are as devoted as ever, cheering and raising their fists in the air at Theart’s every command. The band end with recent single ‘Through The Fire And The Flames’, which manages to rise above the rest and gets one of the biggest cheers of the night. After this, the band once again vacate the stage, and the chanting starts up again. Dragonforce oblige their dedicated fans with a two-song encore, ending with the title track of their first album ‘Valley Of The Damned’.
“Thank you for showing us that metal isn’t dead in this country!” shouts Theart, and the crowd roar their approval.It’s fair to say that if metal was dead, Dragonforce have shocked it back into life with their explosive brand of ‘extreme power metal’. They’ve certainly convinced me that a metal band can put on a storming show.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy a plastic sword.

Written by Paul Faller