Burnt By The Sun playing their very last gig ever, we couldn’t miss out on this! With the release of their latest and last album Heart Of Darkness it was time to finally hit Europe for once and for all!

First up was a bit of a weird choice on this line-up. Dead Unity, who presented their album tonight, plays straight forward hardcore, think of a combination between Sick of It All with a lick of oi-punk. There were only about thirty people in the venue at this point and it didn’t get too busier the whole night either. The big gap between the band and the audience didn’t do the atmosphere any good either. The band made a few ugly fuckups and actually admitted this on stage which I found a bit weird. Not too bad but it didn’t leave that much of an impression. I guess I’ve seen to much of these bands over the last few years, yet there is still some room for improvement! (Brent)

The second support act was the touring partner of Sights & Sounds: Men Eater. This quartet from Portugal plays sludgy metal in vein of Baroness and Mastodon, although they can’t compare themselves with these bands. Their two records Hellstone and Vendaval both hold good but also boring tunes, and I had the idea that they didn’t make a correct setlist tonight. They picked the more heavy and faster songs instead of the more instrumental and atmospheric ones. That might be a personal letdown, but the rougher songs unfortunately didn’t sound very punishing, making their overall performance too weak. (Mindsaver)

If there wasn’t some emo (Sights & Sounds) band playing, we would have considered checking it out. Instead the hall, in combination with beers and socialising seemed more appropriate as a warm up for Burnt By The Sun!

After witnessing the first show of this first and only European tour of Burnt By The Sun, I couldn’t resist also checking out the last one of the tour, which was officially announced as their last show ever. Overall the tour did the band quite some good, because they were even tighter and better than the previous time. The sound tonight was quite nice, a bit messy here and there, especially in the drum department, yet nothing that really killed the fun. A magnificent selection of songs from all their records was displayed live for the last time, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that these guys quit. For me it is one of the most interesting hardcore bands around, which will probably remain so for a long time to come. I hope they undo this decision somewhere in the future and start kicking ass again! (DemonDust)