Letlive.
You know you've seen something special, something that you will simply never forget, when you walk away from a live experience both stunned and not entirely sure what you've just witnessed. Having seen the band in subject on both their debut support and headline London shows earlier in the year, myself and many others had already had our minds blown by something exciting, ferocious and utterly unique. However the band were to once again prove why they're the most exciting new band in the world in yet another earth-shattering fashion this past Saturday at Donington Park. That band are Letlive and, on a weekend full to the brim of bands bringing it hard left, right and centre, utterly owned the weekend.
Beginning out of the blue with a whirring yet subtle riff from guitarist Jeff Sahyoun, standing lone on the stage, the rest of the band gradually join him in building an intensely suspenseful wall of noise before frontman Jason Aalon Butler comes running through the middle of the crowd and jumps across the front rows and over the barrier before being taken down by security with a brawl breaking out as a result, the band carrying on as if this were meant to happen before Butler finally makes it onstage, a blur of charismatic rage, and roars his first line at exactly the right moment. It's something one just couldn't make up. The crowd screams, sings and steadily swells as security don't know what in hell to do as the band launch into a brutal 'H.Ledger' and Butler flies onto the front row in one mere jump right into the faces of those watching. Putting this into words doesn't do it hardly enough justice, it's music at its most intense, emotional and downright special. After unbelievably cathartic performances of the intensely personal 'Muther' and a crushing 'The Sick, Sick, 6.8 Billion', bassist Ryan Jay Johnson is spinning his guitar in the front row while Butler pulls two speakers from the stage, standing on one and screaming into the other and Sahyoun throws his guitar all the way across the stage in a flurry of adrenaline, each member incredibly never missing a note.
Rising and resounding chants of 'Letlive!' followed by 'we want more' justify the events that have just taken place. Letlive, without any doubt, stole this weekend. It's time for the world to STAND UP.