One thing that I make quite known to folk is that I have a great disliking for the Brixton Academy, it seems that every stage of a night at that venue is made very difficult and thus hinders my enjoyment of an evening there. A lot of this probably is due to the fact that it is “the Next level” for bands and there is a substantial jump in size from venues like the Roundhouse and the Garage (where I have seen Mastodon on my previous 2 occasions). Tonight however is an absolute dream, everything goes according to plan from the 5 minutes wait in the queue ensuring I did not miss a single moment and got a great place fairly near the front to the obvious point of it being an incredible show from start to finish!

All 3 bands were on absolute top form and the only slight disappointment of a muddy sound for the support lots was not enough to hinder my enjoyment in any way. When Red Fang take to the stage the venue is still filling up which is a bad point for the souls sat in the cold outside that were gagging to see these boys play one of their first ever shows on this British soil. They bash through a set of stonking tunes including the obvious choices of ‘Wires’, ‘Prehistoric Dog’ and ‘Hank is Dead’ which have a hell of a lot of people singing along. You can tell that these guys are more than happy to be here and thankfully for us all we only have to wait a couple of months until we get a headline show from them.

Dillinger Escape Plan are almost my highlight of the night if it were not for the sound issue, the big sing along choruses of songs like ‘Farewell, Mona Lisa’ are incredible but it’s the Mathcore riffery of some of the more technical songs that are not clear enough and this is obviously not their failing, it’s the venues! The energy of these boys is beyond that of any band here tonight with them launching themselves off every object nearby whether that be a nearby amp or each other, they truly do impress and well and truly warm up the awaiting crowds for the main event.

This is the first in a long time that I have been to a gig of this size where the line up is absolute perfection but we all know that its all about Mastodon tonight and my god what a set (See below) 23 songs spanning their whole career and despite the band saying frequently that they are reluctant to include 2 particular songs we are lucky enough tonight to get both in quick succession ensuring that the whole crowd go absolutely bat shit mental, claws in the air and voices on max volume. I think I speak for most when I say that by the time they had finished I felt as though I had nearly lost my voice entirely. (Said songs being ‘March of the Fire Ants ‘ and ‘Blood and Thunder’ in case you needed help in guessing). Then it was back to the stage for an encore of ‘The Creature Lives’ which was a strange choice but was made all the more enjoyable by every band member of all 3 bands singing along and a mass deployment of Red Mastodon branded balloons….. which was nice!

Top marks to all involved in what was declared as the Don’s biggest ever headline show!

Mastodons almighty setlist was:

Dry Bone Valley
Black Tongue
Crystal Skull
I Am Ahab
Capillarian Crest
Colony of Birchmen
Megalodon
Thickening
Blasteroid
Sleeping Giant
Ghost of Karelia
All the Heavy Lifting
Spectrelight
Curl of the Burl
Bedazzled Fingernails
Circle of Cysquatch
Aqua Dementia
Crack the Skye
Where Strides the Behemoth
Iron Tusk
March of the Fire Ants
Blood and Thunder
Creature Lives