All aboard for a night of frash as Canada’s finest thrashers are in town and they’ve brought the Mighty Midnight with them. Opening the show on the boat were Dutch power thrashers Cryptosis, who knocked out a solid thrashing set, but not being familiar with their repertoire, it took a bit of getting used to, but I did manage to chuckle at their mic stand. Imagine this – Blackie Lawless or Mayhem mic stands if you bought them from Temu, and you’re in the game right there.  With a video screen programmed for something different each song, it was a distraction from the music, if I’m being honest, or was it a welcome distraction, you decide.  Playing a tight, fast, and powerful set, it went down well with many in attendance, but it was a bit of a thankless task opening for Midnight and Voivod, to be fair.

Up next was the main reason I donned my spiked gauntlet and black hooded mask and spent all afternoon negotiating the south Wales train lines to head into enemy territory and the rather fine venue known as Thekla which for those who haven’t been is a boat docked on the banks of the river and hollowed out for a concert venue and to be fair I’ve seen many a great shows in there from The Dwarves to this expectations were high. Athena took to the stage celebrating the anniversary of ‘Satanic Royalty’ so what we got was more or less the entire album with a fine sprinkling of tunes from around the band career. It was noticeable that this time there was a change in personnel from the last two times the band played Bristol but whilst I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw and heard it seemed a little off being on the boat and not somewhere like the previous visits the Exchange where I witnessed the loudest PA ever in almost 50 years of gigs and it almost caused my heart pacer to burst out of my chest it was that loud or maybe it was being on the balcony rattling my jewellery between songs and not in the thick of the pit being thrown around as the band raged through ‘Satanic Royalty’, ‘You Can’t Stop Steel’, Lust Filth and Sleeze’ and other such beauties from their Black n Roll playbook.

When the band hit their stride, there is nothing finer in loud, aggressive Rock music, and whilst they didn’t quite reach the heights of previous performances, it was still a shit ton better than pretty much all other bands doing their music hard, heavy and full of filth and fury. By the time they reached ‘Fucking Speed And Darkness’, ‘F.O.A.L.’ and ending with a triumphant ‘Black Rock n Roll’, they were hitting their stride. Athena thanked the audience for the energy and thought it was their first time in Bristol – don’t tell me that behind the mask, it was an alternative Athena who didn’t remember the two previous epic performances they delivered or had Satan finally stolen his soul in exchange for a set of awesome punked up Black n Roll. Let’s do it again, please its still a breath of fresh air blowing through the harder side of metal.

Onto the headliners, the mighty Voivod, who’ve got a brand new Symphonic album (of course it is) to sell and a reminder to the people of the UK or rather England and beyond that, they are still at the top of their game delivering a technical thrash that is brain melting in the time changes and tightness of it all and how they do it oh so well.

Now here’s my little moan, having made the train journey at great expense and made sure I could make the last train home and several hundred miles to the most local show to me I was disappointed on arrival to find out that the early finish wasn’t quite so early and I would have to leave before the end of the set missing my favourtie songs (no not the Pink Floyd cover) but ‘War And Pain’ and of course the set closer ‘Voivod’. Oh well, next time I’ll have to factor in a stay over or hope they play South Wales again.

Anyway, moan aside, I did get to see roughly 40 minutes of their scheduled 60-minute set, and on the evidence before me, they were on fire. To say they were tight would be an understatement, and tonight’s healthy audience at this midweek show would absolutely testify that the band were killing it. From the opening ‘Experiment’ through ‘The Wakes’, Obsolete Beings’, the tempo and skill were awesome and all those changes. The band looked in great form and were beaming as the audience Rrrroooooooared their appreciation after every song. ‘Korgull The Exterminator’ sounded massive and fresh as fuck as the band mixed up the metal with Punk like no other. As we grudgingly made our way from the good ship Thekla to the strains in the distance of ‘War And Pain’, it was a bittersweet feeling. Well worth it as usual, but disappointing that the times didn’t work this time. £30 for Midnight and Voivod, what an absolute bargain if you can go get some, these bands are on fire and at the top of their games.

Author: Dom Daley