Three Days Grace - Live Review


Three Days Grace & Bad Wolves @ The Institute, Birmingham - 4/10/18

The Institute, main room is one of our most very favourite rooms. It’s beautiful, it’s so grand and the sound is amazing. There’s no other room like it in the midlands. We were there to see Bad Wolves & Three Days Grace. 

Sadly, on the second night of the tour, Bad Wolves frontman, Tommy Vext took ill in Nottingham and was taken to hospital for treatment. In Tommy’s words;

“…As the old adage goes “the show must go on”… On a moment’s notice, Stars from the Doncaster band Bang Bang Romeo and Austin Dickinson from London based As Lions agreed to learn the set list in under 24 hours, travel to Birmingham and play the show for no money, just because they believe in us and because they know we would do the same for them. I certainly understand this sentiment, I had to fill in as the vocalist for Five Fingered Death Punch on several occasions.”

We started out with Austin of As Lions and he bought his own flavour to the Bad Wolves tracks and it actually sounded really great, the crowd ate it up. He seemed unsure at times, but his fresh take on the vocals gave the songs a new layer which was really interesting, and has definitely made us come away and look up As Lions. When Stars hit the stage she had a presence that commanded attention and she smashed out a few tracks including fan and all around current favourite, Zombie. We really missed Tommy, and wish him a speedy recovery, but on this night, even minus 1, Bad Wolves did not disappoint. 

Three Days Grace are legends. Twenty years in, with a long standing line up and six albums under their belt, they’re back in the UK to show us that nothing has changed. The crowd filled the room wall to wall, all anticipating the arrival of our guys. Immediately the room was electric, it’s been a while since we’ve seen such a slick and prepared stage show. The four guys all looked cool, growing into their rocking age without grace or seemingly giving a fuck what you think, and the stage looked magnificent. A huge drum riser, reminiscent of a scene out of The Walking Dead or something, we were imagining the band playing for their lives. Blasting out banger after banger the crowd never stood still. With us not being fully aware of the complete back catalogue we were surprised by the diversity of some of the songs, happily surprised, with Three Days Grace apparently, you can’t expect what they’re going to do next! 

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