Trivium (w/ Savage Messiah, As Lions) @ Barbican Theatre (York, UK) on March 29, 2016 [Show Review w/ Photos]

Taking their tour bus off the beaten track, Florida metal titans Trivium headed out across the UK to play a number of intimate dates in towns not on the usual touring schedule. The latest stop on this run saw the thrashers park their bus at the Barbican theatre, a venue usually associated with panto, snooker and stand-up comics.

First up were young metalcore chaps As Lions who feature amongst their ranks members of highly-rated Brit band Rise To Remain and, Austin Dickinson, son of Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson. As such, the band and Dickinson look right at home on stage and, despite the metallic crunch of tracks like “The Fall” not smashing down any musical boundaries, their thirty minute set is certainly an impressive appetizer for the main course.

With Heart Of A Coward dropping off the tour to head out to Europe supporting Decapitated, it’s up to London thrashers Savage Messiah to pick up the special guest slot. Again the band offer up nothing out of the ordinary but as they rattle through “The Fateful Dark”, “Cross Of Babylon” and set closer “Minority Of One”, the London thrashers ticked all the right boxes and, as with As Lions before them, warmed things up nicely for the headliners.

Reduced stage sizes on this tour mean that the headliners bring with them a scaled-down model of their usual stage show but still deliver the maximum amount of metal possible. While it’s not an explosive start by any means, “Silence In The Snow” kicks things off to a sea of banging heads and pounding fists. The Florida outfit soon turn up the temperature as they race through the likes of “Rain”, “Anthem (We Are The Fire) and “Like Light To The Flies”.

Treating fans both new and old to a career-spanning set, “Strife”, “Requiem” and “Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr” cover all bases with the latter bringing the main set to a foundation-shaking finale. Aside from the music, there is little you can fault Trivium on tonight. Frontman Matt Heafy is the consummate frontman, engaging with the audience at every opportunity while his bandmates deliver a note perfect set.

Watching Trivium tonight it is easy to see why the band are packing out much bigger venues than they have on this tour however, for those sweaty fans lucky enough to catch the band on this run of dates, this was a rare occasion to see their metal heroes up close and personal.

Check out the video for “Dead And Gone”.