The first band to play was the post-hardcore band Secrets. This band brought some fans to the venue and played quite well. After some small moshpits and warming up the crowd, things went downhill a little after the first half of the set. This kind of music is always fun to hear, but the negative side is that the songs sounds alike if you don’t know them. It was a reasonably good performance for an opening act, although the clean vocals could use a little improvement.

After this small surprise it was time for Crown The Empire, a band that also saw quite some fans today. Although the band sounds like the previous one, I couldn’t get over the clean vocals because they weren’t my cup of tea. It was an okay show as well, and the crowd kept moshing and bouncing again, but it was a little bit of a let-down after the first band’s performance. However, somehow the crowd was more enthusiastic than before and the band experienced many technical difficulties.

Now it was time for the real headliner for many people: The Ghost Inside. This band was by far the hardest of the night and got quite some crowdsurfers and hardcore moshers going. Although they stood out a little within the line-up, you definitely couldn’t tell by the show or the crowd. The band played very tightly, tried to play as many songs as they could, and kept the energy going. There were also some awkward moments because of the variety within the crowd. When lead vocalist Jonathan asked to “Open this shit up”, quite some people thought it would become a wall of death. THEY WERE WRONG: this was one of the best breakdowns of the band and while some people tried to do the wall, the hardcore moshers took over the floor and didn’t stop moshing. The result? Many people lay on the ground because of the impact of the wall, girls were screaming, and afterwards there was even more space to go wild. Songs like ‘Engine 45’, ‘Unspoken’ and two brand new, yet to be released songs were played. It was a pity that there were barriers and many people didn’t understand the hardcore feeling. Please, do a headline show next time and take away the barriers. This will be better for the experience.

After this amazing show, many people immediately left the venue and the room was much emptier when the real headliner of the evening started playing. When Asking Alexandria walked on stage I was surprised by the lead vocalist, because he looked a lot like Kid Rock with his cowboy hat, sunglasses and the rest of his appearance. Although some songs were pretty good, the energy wasn’t anything near the energy level of the previous band. Asking has changed quite a bit since the last time they toured through Europe, which I don’t believe is a good thing. Seeing many people having the time of their lives showed that the band made a good choice by making this change. After a few songs I couldn’t convince myself to stay any longer, so I went home and listened to TGI some more.