Sikthin' Hell!
When you look at the career of a band like Sikth in depth it's difficult to really emphasise just how important they have been in moulding the sound of so many over the years. Tonight at Koko their performance actually felt like a celebration. A celebration of their whole career as they crushed through newer tracks amidst playing the fan favourite album Death Of A Dead Day in full. When they first appeared on the scene all those years ago they were ahead of the curve on so many levels, tonight encapsulated the fact that they still are.
With this being the final night on the tour Sikth saved the treat of this full album play-through for this show and it was greeted ravenously by the crowd. Kicking things off by running through some of their newer material (Philistine Philosophies should be their opener from now until the end of time) Mikee Goodman did well to help build the anticipation further for Death Of A Dead Day between tracks so by the point Bland Street Bloom kicked in the place went absolutely ballistic - almost right on cue the pits opened up and beverages aplenty started going airborne. His counterpart Joe Rosser was unusually quiet in amping up the crowd compared to previous gigs but you couldn't take anything away from his soaring melodies throughout. There was the odd moron shouting for Justin Hill continually in the early stages of the album play-through, perhaps longing for a Download 2017 style special appearance but Rosser's ability and performance does deserve a lot more respect.
As a unit there aren't many bands as technically brilliant as Sikth live and it hugely helped that the sound inside the venue tonight was absolutely on point. Every intricate riff, mind boggling bass line and calculated drum fill could be heard with perfect clarity which just enhanced the whole experience. There were genuinely points where you could look across the crowd and actually see people almost laughing aghast during certain parts of tracks - that real "I'm going to give up the idea of playing an instrument" moment. What a band.