Alexandra Palace is one of London’s largest music venues and has hosted the likes of The Prodigy, Enter Shikari and Slipknot so for While She Sleeps to not only be headlining the venue but to completely sell it out is quite the achievement. As fans entered the grand hall, you could feel a real buzz in the air. 10,000 rockers piled into the venue for a night of some of the finest metalcore on offer.
Australia’s own Polaris would open proceedings with a fast paced set that encouraged movement and plenty of head banging. Mosh pits opened up almost instantly and the early birds wasted little time getting their party started. It’s not every day the opening band have a sea full of crowd surfers but Polaris seized their opportunity to leave a lasting impression on thousands of metal heads and absolutely killed it.
Following were the almighty Bury Tomorrow who needed very little introduction. High intensity music packed with emotion resonated well with the nearly full venue. The band felt right at home with singer Dan jumping down and into the crowd for their hit song ‘Black Flame’. A band that has grown alongside the headliners was always going to be an amazing fit and Bury Tomorrow grabbed this opportunity to deliver a set that had highlights from their earlier work as well as unleashing some of their newer material to some new faces.
Darkness filled the room, to be disturbed by the synthetic guitar sounds that could only be the intro to ‘Sleeps Society’. As soon as the song dropped, a curtain fell to unveil While She Sleeps new and spectacular stage set. Pyro, smoke and a beef sound system was enough to send Ally Pally into meltdown as the London crowd unleashed hell to accompany Sleep’s soundtrack of destruction. The first half of the set seemed more focused in newer material with the likes of ‘The Guilty Party’, ‘You Are We’ and a live debut of the bands newest single ‘Self Hell’ only amplifying the energy and excitement around the room.
As the set went on, Loz and co would throw back the years by playing ‘Our Courage, Our Cancer’ for the first time since 2019 as well as ‘Our Legacy’ getting its first play through since 2017! The band also welcomed Dani Winter-Bates of Bury Tomorrow back onto the stage for a spectacular rendition of ‘Silence Speaks’ before closing out their main set with the highly energetic ‘Systematic’
Encores are a given at any show and the Sleeps brothers opened theirs with the more uplifting ‘Enlightenment(?)’ before Loz encouraged the crowd to Surf to the front by saying “Earlier today I was told by one of your staff that we had no chance of beating this crowd surfing record and I responded to her ‘Seven Hills’ will!”. As you could expect, the Sleeps Society obliged and hundreds of crowd surfers braved the metal seas once more. One final song remained and ‘Anti-Social’ was the spark that lit the final match as the crowd left everything they had within the venues four walls. While She Sleeps were met with a lot of skepticism when they announced this show during their support set of Parkway Drive back in 2022 but this performance silenced all the critics. While She Sleeps sold out Alexandra Palace and they completely decimated the place!
Review & Photos By Nick Davarias
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