Poison The Well Lay Waste to the Electric Ballroom on ‘Opposite Of December’ Celebration Tour [Photos]

On August 27th, 2003, I was lucky enough to attend what I still consider to be one of the top 10 best shows I have ever attended. That show was Cult Of Luna, fresh off the release of the brilliant The Beyond. Thrice, who had just dropped the incredible Artist In The Ambulance and Poison The Well, were on a run of 3 of the best Metalcore records ever released. It is the second of those three records, The Opposite Of December, that we are here tonight to celebrate. Given this album was released in 1999 and isn’t hitting an anniversary milestone, it does seem surprising that we are getting this opportunity, but I am certainly not complaining.

Special Guests on the tour are the English quintet Bodyweb. Having caught a lot of people’s attention at Outbreak Festival 24 and a slew of support slots that followed, Bodyweb are not your run-of-the-mill hardcore band. They infuse elements of cyberpunk sampling, nu-metal riffs and ambient vocals into a violently unique sound.

One album and a recently released EPs worth of material have shown huge potential, and live they really bombard the senses. Huge riffs, off-kilter drumming and a tidal wave of breakdowns have the Camden Ballroom paying attention for 30 minutes and no doubt a fresh load of new fans were made this evening.

Now, given the emphasis on this being an Opposite Of December tour, I was personally under the impression that we would get the whole album followed by some of the band’s greatest hits, as per 99% of other bands who have done this before. What transpires is far more entertaining and well thought out than previously imagined. Yes, we get the album in full, but the greatest hits (of which there are many) are perfectly sprinkled in between.

They open with “12/23/93” and “A Wish For Wings That Work,” which makes you genuinely question if riffs get much heavier than this. Luckily, they do, and this band has all of them! They show off their ability to make even the most eloquent and gentle of songs swell and spill into a rage with “Ghostchant” and “Botchla” before “Crystal Lake” absolutely flatlines the place.

There comes a point in most shows when you sense a lull or a slowing down before the big hitters come, but tonight feels like an absolute tsunami of brilliance. Whoever it was in the Poison The Well camp that had the idea to play “Slice Paper Wrists” followed by “To Mandate Heaven,” “Meeting Again For The First Time,” and then “Artist Rendering Of Me” needs to either be knighted or arrested for crowd incitement. It is a run of four of the greatest metalcore songs ever written, and also four songs that, back to back, absolutely set The Camden Ballroom ablaze!

They delve into the massively underrated 2007 album Versions for Letter Thing, probably the first and only song of the night with guitar solos of sorts. We then crown the last tracks off of Opposite Of December, “My Mirror No Longer Reflects and the almighty singalong, stomp a hole in the floor anthem “Nerdy,” which feels like a really perfect and poignant closing to the evening.

Poison The Well created some of the most textured, distinctive and ambitiously heavy music of their time and nearly 30 years on, they sound better than ever.

Poison The Well (w/ Bodyweb, Killing Me Softly) @ Stylus (Leeds, UK) on September 15th, 2025

27 photos