LACUNA COIL, CANCER BATS, DEAD BY APRIL, THE DEFILED

THE DEFILED are first to take to the Forum stage, and they really don't look like they should be supporting a band like LACUNA COIL. Heavily tattooed guitarist/vocalist Stitch D's backcombed hair and ripped jeans make him look like too much of an glam rock wannabe gone wrong, whereas fellow guitarist Curse is obviously taking the swine flu threat very seriously in his heavy duty face mask and apron; making him look like he's jumped on a bus to Kentish Town straight from his day job as an axe murderer. Their sound was unfortunately as cringworthy as their attire: Stitch's screams sound painfully strained, but when he sings cleanly he doesn't have a bad voice at all. In fact these brief moments of melody are rather enjoyable and one could only wish for more of them. I failed to pick out anything else from the rest of their set that didn't resemble the same old metalcore shit that Kerrang! have been forcefeeding us for the last few years. Ten out of ten for trying, bless 'em, but unfortunately it seems the LACUNA COIL fans tonight would prefer to indulge in something a less repetitive, monotonous and immature.

DEAD BY APRIL invoke a mixed reaction from the crowd, mostly of slight confusion as we collectively wonder why anyone would want to combine crooning teenie pop band choruses with chugging riffs, screamo verses and the odd electro/synth addition. I appreciate there is a definite need for some bands to bridge the gap between genres and incorporate many different elements into their music to avoid the impending invasions of hoardes of metalcore clones like THE DEFILED, but DEAD BY APRIL have gone the wrong way about it entirely.

CANCER BATS vocalist Liam Cormier must have a hairdresser who hates him. By the time they make their entrance I'm beginning to wonder whether these three bands were not actually supposed to be opening for LACUNA COIL, but in fact scheduled to attend a ridiculous haircut convention and happened to stumble into the wrong venue. It would make much more sense. Unsurprisingly, they bought nothing special to the stage, and Cormier instead decided to soak the front row of people in a – actually quite impressive – torrent of his saliva. And that was still preferable to actually listening to them fail epically at, well, everything. It was mostly just a jumbled noise, until for a part of one song, they had a delightful breakdown where the guitars quietened completely and you could actually hear Cormier's screaming. It then became very apparent why they'd had the guitars turned up so loud to drown him out.

LACUNA COIL frontwoman Cristina Scabbia recently spoke of this one-off show in an interview, saying that they were gonna pull out a “super special set up on stage”, which is immediately evident as soon as the “la la la la la”'s from “Shallow Life” opener “Survive” kick in and the crowd watch a short series of moving images projected onto a giant transparent curtain covering the front of the stage, culminating with the line “I will not live a shallow life”. The moment Cristina and her co-vocalist Andrea Ferro emerge from opposing sides of the stage, the entire Forum erupts and Cristina instantly has two and a half thousand people eating from the palm of her hand. You can't help but stare in awe at the effortless beauty and confidence that radiates from her every pore; whether she's jumping up and down, waving her arms, dancing seductively or skipping like a little girl across the stage. So when she demands that the crowd jump with her, put their hands up or make some noise, we're more than happy to oblige. She keeps us involved every step of the way, and when she opens her mouth to sing it feels like she's serenading every one of us individually. There were no surprises in the set lists; they seemed to stick to one very similar to that of their recent US tour only 15 songs long including the encore. This of course included staples such as “Heaven's a Lie”, “Swamped”, and singalong favourite “Enjoy The Silence”, where Cristina and Andrea pointed their microphones at the crowd who wholeheartedly sang the penultimate chorus for them. Although they played five of the stand-out tracks from “Shallow Life”, the distinct lack of pre-“Comalies” material was also a disappointment; a bit of “Senzafine” or “1.19” would definitely have gone down well. Setlist choices aside, LACUNA COIL couldn't have put on a better show if they tried. Cristina's showmanship (or show-womanship?) was a very large part of what made it so good. They could have covered Spice Girls songs and danced the macarena all night and we'd still have come away more than satisfied that our 9 hour queuing time was worth every minute.