GROOOVE
With a line up stacked with four acts, the opening band can often become victim to the fact that you’ll only get a handful turning up at doors, and most won’t have even finished queuing to put their bags in the cloakroom before the set is over. For Incite, when they initially hit the stage there certainly was this vibe. Looking across the floor you could literally fit the amount of people into an office block lift. This however did not stop Incite from battering their way onto the stage with such a level of ferocity you couldn’t help but have your attention immediately stolen. Luckily for them, by the third track there were a fair number of people filtering in, with many clearly becoming excited at the kind of live sound they were creating by darting up the stairs and skipping the bar altogether.
The band are part of the ever growing Cavalera dynasty, and it’s no exaggeration to say that energy wise on stage, they’re very similar to early days Sepultura. Richie Cavalera leads the line, absolutely dominating in the same kind of style as you might expect from Randy Blythe. Incite are not a new band, they are about to embark on album cycle number four, but they are a developing band - if you caught an Incite show a few years ago they’re very different now. The band’s level of musicianship, their general presence on stage is almost infectious.
The show hits its peak about midway through the set as the band are joined by Liam Cormier from tonight’s headliners Cancer Bats to perform the track Rightful Spot from their 2014 release Up In Hell. The collaboration between these two sounds great on record, but live it’s a completely different animal. The ante was upped one further a few tracks later as the man himself Max Cavalera also joined the band on stage. We’re talking about the opening band here - the band who should be playing to a handful of merch guys. By this point they’d drawn a big crowd and nailed two absolutely huge stage collaborations, just brilliant. One thing is for absolutely certain, Incite gained a fair few new followers after this performance.