Live Review: Trivium, Download Festival, 9 June 2012

Having played Download Festival in 2005 when they were just becoming as big as they are today, Trivium’s performance shook the town of Donington’s main stage on Saturday afternoon with an earthquake of a crowd reaction as the band appeared. With the trembling intro of Capsizing the Sea building the immense atmosphere, straight away, no messing about, the band went straight into their killer single In Waves from their new album.

The electricity in the air gave me goosebumps along with the monstrous amount of fans the band had brought with them. After just finishing their opening song, not even a second went by as they went straight into famous single Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr with mosh pits growing rapidly. This song really had everyone on their feet and jumping with its impeccably fast tempo.

The performance of the songs was spot on with no noticeable mistakes, just like listening to them on CD. Except obviously you can see the band, with a good few thousand people stood around you and one hell of an atmosphere. Black; my personal favorite song from the new album which brings the attitude more than most of the other tracks, purely due to its powerful catchy guitar riff and melodic chorus. This had the crowd with their fists in the air and singing along together at parts. I noticed in this song i really could hear the dangerously quick tempo of the drums that was not quite as obvious in the album recording. Lead singer Matt Heafy brought some awesome stage presence at this point, despite really not suiting short hair, he knows how to draw the fans in and move them about.

By far the best song of the set was A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation. Taken from their 2005 album Ascendancy, this song has never failed to get a reaction. Slightly different from their usual stuff, the song contains more variety and especially more guitar solos. When reaching the breakdown, it seemed as if both guitarists were in competition with each other,  each taking their turn to shred and then resulting in playing one huge tapping solo between them.

Considering the band only played eight songs, I was surprised that they didn’t play more. Their set seemed to be the best gig they had ever played, having talked about wanting to top their last show at the festival back in 2005 on Kerrang, from my point of view they smashed it. I personally feel given their crowd reaction that they should have been given a later set, not quite as late as Metallica, but later than the early afternoon slot they were given. At the end of their set, Trivium announced they would be touring the UK later on this year. Now I don’t know about you, but I will certainly be considering checking those tour dates for the one that is closest to me. If you haven’t seen Trivium before then do not turn down the chance to see them live, they really put on a show and it’s one hell of an experience.