Fresh off the email from Glynn Thomas comes this review of the Chimaira/Every Time I Die show in Birmingham! Thanks for emailing in! Keep ’em coming… “After having a shit week I would like to thank the Chimaira guys for making Saturday night fuckin awesome, the best I’ve had all year! I got to meet the guys before the gig and they all seemed to be looking forward to the night, despite only having a few hours sleep and a lot to drink. It’s cool when a band is this dedicated- touring so much, and after seeing them at Wolverhampton Wulfrun in November I wasn’t sure how they could match that, but they still played a million times better! I was fortunate to find some guys I knew on the bar so I got as close as I could, a couple of days of not being able to hear afterwards was totally worth it! First up were Every Time I Die, I thought these guys were ok! When their short set was over we were left with irritating songs being played through the speakers testing our patience. Eventually Stampin Ground came on, I had never seen these guys before but I was impressed, a good warm up band and they kept the crowd pleased, it was funny seeing the looks on the confused security guys faces when SG got the crowd to do Chimaira’s wall of death! After a long wait the lights dimmed and Implements Of Destruction kicked in. The crowd were all psyched and as soon all the guys made their way onto the stage, the harsher part of the instrumental kicked in, on came Mark Hunter and they kicked off in the Chimaira tradition with Power Trip, followed by Cleansation. Despite the lack of sleep these guys had had they were full of energy and after only two songs the crowd had gone from restless to unrestable (if there’s such a word), every one was going mad and the band failed to disappoint! They played some personal favourites such as Eyes Of A Criminal, and Severed from the Pass Out Of Existence album, half way through playing Severed Mark, Rob, Matt, Chris and Jim left the stage to leave new drummer Ricky to tear the crowd apart with his awesome drumming, with a solo which went on for a long while, and after showing off his talents the other members returned and broke back into Severed. A Chimaira gig wouldn’t be a Chimaira gig without Mark Hunter’s metal history lesson, so it was eventually time for the Wall Of Death, but to make it more interesting he threw in a copy of the special edition album into the ‘parted sea’ refusing to carry on playing if anyone touched it before he let them. The security guys piled in to help people out whilst the band carried on impressing. They ended with the awesome Pure Hatred, a great song to end with and everyone screamed along. Mark then went to greet the crowd, and whilst everyone was crushing forward to get to him he told my friends that he had seen him in a dream which was pretty cool, maybe Mark does have an odd religious connection other than Moses!?!, whatever it is they fuckin’ ruled, best night of the year and it’s a shame that I have to wait for their next tour! After the show they stayed to DJ at the club in the Academy, like I said before – it’s awesome that a band is that dedicated to their fans and I’ll never forget that night!” m/