Gojira (w/ TesseracT) @ Rebel (Toronto, ON) on October 20, 2016 [Photos & Show Review]

When France’s most prominent metal band comes to Toronto you bet your sweet bippy PureGrainAudio was there to capture the action! Accompanied by British prog metal act Tesseract, Gojira took over the newly appointed REBEL. Previously known as The Sound Academy, the new owners have given this venue an incredible upgrade with decor straight from an ’80s club scene.

As The Sound Academy it was always a venue that was kind of a bitch to get too, never one of my favourites purely because of the distance. But this new REBEL design has quickly made this my favourite venue in the city. The rain that day was heavy and the cars were lined up around the block. However the music in the REBEL was even heavier.

Opening the show Tesseract brought their hard-hitting genre to the Toronto metal fans that quickly ate it up, getting themselves warmed up for the main course of Gojira. I can’t speak much about Tesseract as I personally haven’t explored their body of work prior to this show, My good friend and radio host Patrick Walford informed me that “Tesseract shreds”. From what I heard at the REBEL that evening he did not understate their shredding skills. Their performance has won me over and I’ll be checking out more of their work from here on out.

It was Gojira that I was personally excited for this being my third time witnessing them. Last time I witnessed this environmentally centric themed band was in the great city of Chicago for Chicago Open Air. (Captured my favourite photo of Joe D from that set.) Over time, whenever I see Gojira, I walk away with a greater appreciation for these talented musicians.

Opening their show with “Only Pain”, the crowd erupted into a pure unadulterated energy. Before we knew it they kicked in to “The Heaviest Matter of The Universe” and I was in the photo pit. Much to my delight their third song was “Silvera” (my personal favourite). It was intense, non-stop and the crowd loved every minute of it. Playing new tunes from Magma to older tunes from Flying Whales, this band did not disappoint.

Gojira’s Joe Duplantier would take to the mic to say, In the 20 years of touring this is our best tour ever.” A fact you could tell was one hundred percent true from the reaction of the crowd alone. In the middle of the set drummer Mario Duplantier gave one of the tightest drum solo performances I’ve seen in quite awhile. All in all I walked away from this show with Gojira as my second favourite band of all time, only slightly under The Protomen.

Check out the song “The Shooting Star”

Tesseract Set List:
01. Phoenix
02. Concealing Fate, Part 2: Deception
03. Concealing Fate, Part 3: The Impossible
04. Of Matter – Proxy
05. Of Matter – Retrospect
06. Dystopia
07. Survival
08. Of Mind – Nocturne

Gojira Set List:
01. Only Pain
02. The Heaviest Matter on the Universe
03. Silvera
04. Stranded
05. Flying Whales
06. The Cell
07. Backbone
08. Terra inc.
09. Wisdom Comes
10. Drum Solo
11. The Shooting Star
12. Toxic Garbage Island
13. Pray
Encore:
14. Clone
15. Oroborus
16. Vacuity