Six Year Silence/Catalysis/King Nobody, Ivory Blacks, 2nd March 2024

There is a healthy crowd in the venue for tonight's openers King Nobody, who describe themselves as "Groove Metal from the West Of Scotland". There are so many sub-genres these days it's hard to keep up with what is what, all I know is, these guys play a solid mix of hard rock and heavy metal. They kick off the evening with the first of their six song set, with a subtly titled (not) song "F**ked into Existence" nice! In recent times, there has been a tendency for crowds to be underwhelmed with opening bands, however, not tonight! It is encouraging to see a healthy crowd supporting "grass roots" music, the reception from this crowd isn't the usual polite clapping and cheering, there is a good part of the audience here for King Nobody. Second song is E.P title track, "Sacrament" followed by another great title, "A Beautiful Day For An Exorcism" which was a personal favourite from tonight's set. Next we have, I assume, a couple of Egyptian themed songs, going by their titles, "Anubis Reign" and "The Niles Holy War", with the response of this crowd, King Nobody is well worth seeing, which, no doubt, I will see them again this year, hopefully. Tonight's set ends with "Destruction Ritual" I'm not the only one who enjoyed tonight's openers, the rest of the crowd were enthusiastic with their send off. It really is great seeing such support for up and coming bands.

We have the usual fifteen minute break before the second band take to the stage, this band needs no introduction to this reviewer, they are Sottish Alternative Music Award winners for 2022 and also Metal 2 the Masses Scottish heat winners 2022, from Dundee, Catalysis.  This band have been described as "Bulldozers of Scottish metal" I can't think of a better way to describe the band than this! Tonight the band have a seven track, in your face, setlist. My "usual spot" for the start of a set in Ivory's is front row (obviously) right in the middle of the stage, this is where vocalist Col, spends most of tonight's set perched on top of the barrier, so once again I get really up close personal shots of Col, I'm getting very well acquainted with his left knee!

Tonight's opener is the fantastic "Kingmaker" followed swiftly with "Gone", after "Gone" I get my usual "one finger salute" from guitarist Drew Cochrane, this is a band that has a great rapport with their crowd. The band push on with "Gallows" and "Shadow Parasite". Here is where vocalist, Col, gets some audience participation, from his podium on the barrier, he gets the crowd to part in the middle to open up a space on the floor, this is now where Col co-ordinates a "slam pit", which now continues to the end of the bands set. One thing I have to mention about vocalist Col, he was bouncing between harsh and soft vocals like there were two vocalists on stage, very impressive.

The band are a man down tonight, for whatever reason, bassist "Pabs" wasn't able to make it, his place was, at short notice, superbly filled by fellow Dundee band, Volcano X bassist, Robi Islam, with only a couple of days practice, he played like he'd been with the band for years. The final three songs, "Never Unseen", "Before The Fall" and lastly "Connection Lost" were over in the blink of an eye. I would love to see Catalysis play on a larger stage supporting a large touring band, not only for their hard work, but their talent deserves to be seen. For bands like Machine Head etc you won't get a better opening band than Catalysis, but they'll have a go at kicking your backsides too! 

Tonight's headliners, like Catalysis deserve to be playing on bigger stages with big bands, they are, of course, Six Year Silence!

Again I need no introduction to SYS, having followed them for a few year's now, and have reviewed them before for Rockfiend.

Being headliners, they have the luxury of having a dozen tracks to get through tonight. Before I get into the bands set, I will say, my favourite Scottish band are The Almighty, whom I shall be reviewing later this year, I hold Six Year Silence with the same esteem, yes they too are "Wild & Wonderful". It has become popular over the last twenty odd years to describe a band as being "all thriller with no filler", which could have been written for tonight's headliners. Opening their set with "Vita Nova" then "I Desire", vocalist, Johnny Malice, (who I have described in the past, as the cuddly lion from the movie "The Wizard of Oz" lol) has one of his many interactions with the crowd. Next we are given more excellent tunage with "Resurrected", "Hypocrite" & "Worlds Collide".

Like Catalysis, I could run out of superlatives when talking about Six Year Silence. Meanwhile, "In Due Time", "My Enemy" & "Fight Song" give us another dose of classic Heavy Rock. As usual, throughout the bands set, we get many mike toss and big hair flicks from Johnny, he constantly has interactions with his bandmates, who are all enjoying this show, we all are! For the final segment we are given "Unbroken" & "Forever Burning" before we get the EPIC "King To A Clown".

 

Before we get the final song of the evening Johnny has another chat with the crowd. It has become quite the thing for frontmen these days to openly talk about men's mental health issues, a subject for men over a certain age, it's a subject many don't know how to address, or even admit to having issues with depression or anxiety. You can hear with Johnny's emotional tone that this subject and this final song means a lot to him and certain members of the crew, Six Year Silence finish with "Monster".

There is one more moment between band and audience, everyone is beckoned to come forward to the barrier for the final band and crowd photograph, and as always, the show is over way too quickly.

See you at the barrier at some point.