9

Loud, Intense Metal

Arriving amidst a hail of feedback, strobe lights and a rapturous crowd reception, Utah-based band The Used give us an initial barrage of loud, intense metal fuelled songs. It's high energy stuff, but they play the contrasts between hard and harder nicely.

Whilst maintaining a hard edge throughout, The Used mix things up well, the third song of the set, for example, is quite different to the first couple with clean vocals and a major chord melody. . . and not a scream in sight! First impressions draw comparisons with AFI, and that puts them in good company. "Just in case you didn't know, we are the fucking Used!" exclaims the singer but judging from the resulting roar I think it's a safe bet that most people knew!

The crowd are offered plenty of opportunities for audience participation, which they duly accept, not that they need any encouragement. The Used know how to work a crowd and today they don't have to try very hard and succeed with ease.

They put on a good show but as the set progresses the songs seem to lose the intensity of the openers and some of them are pretty average. Even in these moments though there is entertainment, video screens are marvellous things, especially when they show one enthusiastic young lady baring her chest! It all adds to the fun, although it's evened up when the singer does the same with his backside.

Unsurprisingly the partisan crowd love every minute and The Used make sure they know it's appreciated. Overall it's a good show and the weaker songs are made up for by excellent showmanship.