Alice in Chains, O2 Brixton, Monday 7th December 2009
Posted in Gigs, Reviews on December 10th, 2009 by Alex
Enough has been said about Alice in Chains’ comeback minus the late, great Layne Staley – over the past year the band have done more than enough to be judged on their current merits alone. A sold out Brixton show seems to demonstrate this.
First up, a quick note on support bands. Surely a band of AIC’s calibre would warrant some slightly more heavy hitting or at least suitable support? What we got were two unknown British acts that seemed disastrously out of place on the same bill as these legends. We started with a spirited performance from Little Fish – a 3 piece with a lady vocalist who can really belt it out – sounding sounding somewhere between PJ Harvey and The Datsuns. Entertaining but somehow inappropriate. Then the truly dismal Healthy Minds Collapse – somewhere between Foo Fighters and McFly. Their performance was competent, but supporting Alice in Chains? Really? I can think of a dozen local doom/grunge acts more appropriate/deserving then these acts. The promoter should be shot.
Alice in Chains, on the other hand, are not in the business of disappointing. Kicking off with a medley of Dirt stompers – Rain When I Die, Damn That River, Them Bones – the crowd were ecstatic. And so the mood remained throughout the show. The set spanned almost their entire back catalogue (only Sap remaining unrepresented), and contained little in the way of surprises. This is just fine, at least for the moment. The fans starved of an AIC fix for a decade would have expected a greatest hits set, and that’s largely what they got.
Perhaps the only surprise was William Duvall, finally being allowed to show of his vocal skills, belting out a convincing performance of Staley set-piece Love, Hate, Love. Both Duval and Cantrell seeming exceptionally pleased with themselves about this, and so they should be; it felt like the extra present that you missed at the bottom of your stocking.
The show was bisected by a 3 song acoustic set comprising of new track, Your Decision, live favourite No Excuses, and a muted performance, dedicated to Staley, of Black Gives Way to Blue which culminated with images of the great man himself projected on the big screen drawing solemn applause from the audience.
This was not a case of a band relying on former glories though. The new album was well represented here, with at least half the tracks off of it being included in the set. These were received well, but with nothing like the rapture of the old classics.
After being treated to live favourites We Die Young, Angry Chair and Man in the Box, the band disappeared to return minutes later with the second highlight of the show – a stunning version of the beautiful Nutshell culminating in an extended signature Cantrell solo. Perennial favourites Would? and Rooster are delivered with gusto and the crowd bounce out of the auditorium, throats raw and once again convinced that Alice in Chains are still truly legendary.
