Architects promised that this tour will be special, that they will play their longer set ever during 2h and that they will play some old songs. Did they keep their 3 promises? Well, at least 2 of them! Was it worth to drive from Brussels to Frankfurt? Absolutely!
This tour has been rescheduled 2 times due to obvious reasons. A very small tour as it’s only 10 days long with only shows in Germany and one indoor festival in Netherlands. We’ve attended 3 shows on this run: the first one in Frankfurt so we’ll the full adrenaline and surprise to discover the set-list, a second one 2 days later on the way home to Belgium so we don’t have to do the full road Frankfurt – Brussels in 1 time (yeah, small excuse) and finally, the last show of this small tour, in Netherlands for the Headbanger’s Parade because it’s close to Belgium, it’s promoted by the lovely team from Jera On Air, some bands are playing longer set and we gonna have the chance to see more as it’s an indoor festival. So, Frankfurt, round 1!
SLEEP TOKEN: THE BIGGEST MASKED BAND SINCE SLIPKNOT AND GHOST?!
Architects brought 2 amazing bands with them on this tour: their old friends from Australia Northlane and one of the biggest prospects from the metal scene right now, Sleep Token. The British act has the difficult – really ?- task to open the evening in this beautiful arena from Frankfurt. Weird thing to notice: the venue is oval. Usually, the venues avoid this form. But not here. And the sound is… really good! The venue is already full as hell for the most famous unknown masked musicians in the world right now. We all know the faces behind the mask from SlipKnot since a while. Same for most of the musicians from Ghost. But for Sleep Token, it’s a whole mystery (well, for 99% of the people but we’re part of the 1% left). That being said, lot of people want to (re)discover live this band and it was totally worth it! During 30 minutes, they played all of their most famous singles and if there was not many sing-along, we saw many people enjoying it.
Set-list: Chokehold, Alkaline, Hypnosis, The Love You Want, Higher, The Offering.
Main support of the bill: Northlane. Seeing Architects and Northlane touring together reminded us the sweet memory of the “Lost Forever Lost Together Tour” back in March 2014 when they played the small Trix Club in front of 400 crazy fans. What a journey since then! And so many musical changes as well.
The major part of their setlist tonight came from their latest album “Obsidian” released last year, 3 songs from “Alien” as well (2019) and only 1 song from before survived for this set-list: the famous Quantum Flux which isn’t played in the end of the show but somewhere in the middle. If you have been a fan for like 10 years, it’s a strange feeling but the Australian have evolved a lot since then and it’s usual to focus on the most recent records… right Architects?
NORTHLANE FORGOT THEIR ROOTS FOR GOOD!
During 40 minutes, Northlane delivered a strong show but like Sleep Token, we missed a bit more energy in the mix. But we think it’s coming from Architects management restrictions. Business is business… Markus Bridge is on fire and Nic Petterson is still an amazing drummer. Like said before, Quantum Flux was played in the middle of the set and still got a strong reaction from the audience but the highlights came after that from Clockwork to Talking Heads. The biggest part of their actual fanbase is from 2015 and after.
Set-list: Clarity, Plenty, Echo Chamber, 4D, Carbonized, Quantum Flux, Clockwork, Bloodline, Talking Heads.
After these 2 luxurious opening bands, it was time for us to welcome the reason we were all there that night: Architects. They promised us a 2h set, some surprises and some old shit. Did they respect all their promises? Well, almost!
After the intro Do You Dream Of Armageddon and a beautiful display on big screen on stages, the British guys appeared on stage and first surprise: they aren’t not 5 but 6 on stage! An additional musician is present on the left side of the stage playing guitars, keyboards and doing some backing vocals as well. Second but smaller surprise: the first song played is Black Lungs and not a song from the latest album “The Classic Symptoms Of A Broken Spirit”. But for us, European mortals, we could almost forget it, it’s a live debut as we didn’t have the chance to have a proper “For Those That Wish To Exist” promo tour as they released this one during the pandemic. That being said: it’s already a fire in the room. Everybody knows the song, we have already the first wall of death asked by Sam Carter and the sound is almost perfect, way better than during Northlane and Sleep Token sets. Which is not a surprise as they’ve always had a perfect sound and such a beautiful stage production!
The first song from 2022’s album is Be Very Afraid. Were they afraid to play this song? Not at all! And the reaction from the audience was great. But, it’s nothing compared to what came next: These Colors Don’t Run! What surprised us here is not only they put the song back in the set-list (which was expected as the band promised they’ll play old stuff) but they also played it very early in the set: song number 4… of 24! Obviously, the floor became a real madness, everybody knows the lyrics and everybody knows when it was time to open the floor for the biggest wall of death of the evening. It’s bicycle: we’ll never forget how to do it!
The British band has so many famous songs, it’s not a surprise they can offer a 2h set. But as it’s a first time and they have so many new songs to play, we could have been a little bit worried. Just a little bit. They are one of the best live band in the modern metal scene but they’ve never played so long. Nobody does (sadly). But song after song, Sam Carter and his teammates have still so much energy. Even at mid-set when we felt a little bit tired in the pit after sick songs like Deep Fake, Impermanence or Discourse Is Dead, it looks the show only started for them. They have trained a lot to gain endurance, no doubt about that. Maybe we should have to!
ARCHITECTS PROMISED OLD SONGS? THEY LIED A LITTLE BIT!
What about these old songs the band promised us?! We got These Colors Don’t Run at the beginning of the set and that’s it so far. But Sam didn’t forget what they said and the song number 11 is one of them and of the highlight of the evening: Broken Cross. Finally! Finally, they play again some songs from “Lost Forever // Lost Together” which is, let be honest, the game changer in their whole discography. There’s the Architects from before 2014 and the Architects from after 2014. Unfortunately, what we didn’t know at that time it it gonna be the only song from “LF/LT”… The band gave us a beautiful gift with this old song? Well, it’s not for nothing. Right after that, they played Little Wonder, the softer song they have, a song sounding boring in the studio version and Sam asked to enjoy this song as much as we could, to dance with him and not to blame them for this one. A chance they played Broken Cross just before…
Do you remember what you were doing on 21 November 2020? The pandemic was still strong. The music industry was dead. We were a few weeks ago from our saddest Christmas ever. But 1 month in advance, we received a beautiful gift – well, against 20€ – from Architects: a live-stream from the beautiful Royal Albert Hall in London. An amazing show in an empty venue where we got some surprises and new songs, including Dead Butterflies. Did they imagine this song would have such an impact? For us, it’s by far one of the best songs they’ve ever written and the 4500 fans tonight were waiting to finally hear this song live! The highlight of the evening? Almost. Let’s say: the beginning of the nightlight of the evening! From there, the intensity of the show will only increased without any downs. Check the songs we got next: Royal Beggars, A Match Made In Heaven, Memento Mori and A Wasted Hymn in acoustic like during the live stream at the Royal Albert Hall, Burn Down My House half–acoustic and half-fully played, Hereafter and Doomsday. Insane. The clock said about 1h45 of show. We still have the encore and a few huge new songs we expect to have: When We Were Young and the hymn of this Architects 3.0, Animals. Sam did a last speech before this last song telling us how they were so looking forward to play this one in front of a huge crowd fan in Germany. Well, it’s now done. And perfectly done!
Set-list: Do You Dream Of Armageddon, Black Lungs, Modern Misery, Be Very Afraid, These Colors Don’t Run, Deep Fake, Tear Gas, Giving Blood, Impermanence, Meteor, Discourse Is Dead, Broken Cross, Little Wonder, A New Moral Low Ground, Dead Butterflies, Royal Beggars, A Match Made In Heaven, Memento Mori, A Wasted Hymn, Burn Down My House, Hereafter, Doomsday // Encore: Nihilist, When We Were Young, Animals.
Architects promised that this tour will be special, that they will play their longer set ever during 2h and that they will play some old songs. Did they keep their 3 promises? Well, at least 2 of them! Was it worth to drive from Brussels to Frankfurt? Absolutely!
