Last night I went along to Nottingham and saw one of my favourite bands, Of Mice & Men, performing live for the fourth time. I hadn’t planned on attending, however a last minute change to my work and my sister’s sixth form schedule meant we could take the trip to see the performance. I didn’t manage to get any photos from the gig, but here’s a snap from the band’s Instagram account which will give you a taste of the atmosphere.
We arrived to the venue a little late, so unfortunately we only heard opening act Hands Like Houses perform three songs of their set. From what I heard, I really enjoyed their performance: the vocalist’s voice was strong throughout, and the instrumentals sounded pretty tight. These guys were definitely a solid choice of opening act. Here’s the video for one of the songs they played:
Following Hands Like Houses was Crown The Empire, whose performance I also really enjoyed. There were a couple of issues with microphone levels throughout this set, however: during the first couple of songs the vocalist’s voice was drowned out by the instruments, and towards the end his microphone was too loud and the guitars were overpowered. Even noticing this issue, I still thought Crown The Empire put on a great show, and they really helped to amp up the atmosphere in preparation for Of Mice & Men to take to the stage. Here’s the music video to one of the songs I most enjoyed hearing them play:
Then it was time for the main act to take to the stage. Of Mice & Men opened with Pain, one of my favourites from their new record Cold World, and it was a fantastic, high energy start to the gig. They mainly played songs from the new record, which is understandable as it was only released a couple of weeks ago, as well as a fair few from Restoring Force. I was extremely pleased when I realised that they were also playing The Calm, The Storm, The Flood and The Depths in succession, which definitely went down well with more long term fans of the band. Their encore was topped off with Second & Sebring, was was probably my highlight of the whole night.
Overall the performance by Of Mice & Men was brilliant, as per usual, with no noticeable technical issues or dodgy microphone levels. In the past I’ve consistently noted that Aaron Pauley’s vocals live were fairly weak and quiet, however even though he complained of waking up with a cold yesterday morning, I think his vocal performance was the best I’ve heard. Maybe he was pushing his voice harder than usual to make up for his illness? The only issue I found with the band’s performance was Austin Carlile’s clean vocals during Away: I thought his voice was quite nasal, and reckon he’d be better off sticking to harsh vocals from now on.
It was definitely worth seeing Of Mice & Men for the fourth time, as to me their performances are getting better and better every time. If you’re able to attend any of the remaining UK tour dates this month, I’d highly recommend it.
Were you at the gig last night? What did you think of the performance? Let me know on my Facebook or Twitter page, or in the comment section below this post.
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