There were two local bands as support act. It was a surprise to see All for Nothing on the bill, because they hadn’t been announced on the website before the show except for a few forums. Because of the fact that Ignite’s management wanted this up and coming hardcore band on the bill as well, All for Nothing (who finished a tour with the legendary Slapshot a few months ago) had the chance to open the night for a half full room with just a few bored looking people. I’ve seen this band at Roosendaal’s Moshmeeting before as well and I must say I was way more impressed there than what they performed at this night. But the sound was very crappy and there was absolutely no crowd reaction at all, so the performance looked slightly routine-ish. They played a new song which sounded very good so I haven’t lost my faith in this band yet! But it’s something you have to see in a small venue instead of a big room with a boring crowd.

 

After that, another Dutch hardcore band called State of Mind entered the stage and I was happy to see them as I missed their performance at the Cro-Mags gig a few days before this show. But it didn’t turn out to be my style really since State of Mind play a rocky kind of New York old school hardcore that just doesn’t catch my interest. As All for Nothing plays really plays pretty straight forward 2-step hardcore, the choice to put this band after them was a little weird in my ears. Not a bad performance but not something that gets me excited.

 

Oh boy, I remember Ignite’s performance on their tour with Terror, Strung Out and Death Before Dishonor last year when they played those acoustic tracks. I was really hoping they wouldn’t play them this show, but as they planned an acoustic tour last year as well (that got cancelled in the end, thank god) I feared the worst… The band kicked off with an intro track by The Beach Boys. ‘Bleeding’ followed by mostly tracks from their last album Our Darkest Days, like ‘Know Your History’, ‘Let It Burn’, ‘Fear Is Our Tradition’ and some older tracks like ‘Veteran’, ‘Who Sold Out Now’ and of course ‘A Place Called Home’. Nothing special and absolutely nothing different from the show they did last year except for the fact they didn’t play a new song (last year’s show, still no album… the fuck?) and after that… Yup, my worst nightmare. After U2’s cover ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ which isn’t the most straight song in the world, they continued to play ‘Slow Down’ and ‘Live For Better Days’ acoustic. The band sounded tight before the acoustic tracks, but the switch didn’t do the quality good after that. A really predictable encore (that was probably on the setlist before the show already) left me with mixed feelings. How come such a great band turned into such a routine? And I didn’t talk about singer Zoli’s extremely failed try to be a super funny comedian yet. Trying to link Michael Jackson with swine flu in such a bad way left me with even more mixed feelings. The band’s set before the acoustic part was alright, except for the speeches, but the second part didn’t make it a night to remember eventually. Zoli told the audience the next thing they will record is a full-length acoustic album and that’s just a shame because the direction this band is going is definitely not hardcore!