LIVE REVIEW: Blind Channel @ Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Finish rockers BLIND CHANNEL have been over in the UK quite a lot in the past couple of years, playing Download Festival in 2023, and their Lifestyles Of The Sick & Dangerous tour in 2022. One of the venues they visited on that tour was the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham. This April, they revisited the venue with a whole new album, Exit Emotions, and from what it looked like, a whole new audience.

Kicking things off was first support act, ROCK BAND FROM HELL. From the name, you might expect a group of members dressed up in devil costumes with flames surrounding you. This was however, not quite the vibe that came across. Instead we were greeted by a Finnish three piece that looked like your average rock band. The lead singer had some major Gerard Way mixed with Billy Joel Armstrong energy, and the other members looked like your standard guitar player and drummer. One of the main highlights of this set was the way they mixed with the crowd, interacting in a way that brought an excitement into the room.

Their music sounded like a modern interpretation of GREEN DAY, making great use of some jumpy pop rock/punk riffs. There was one riff in particular though that could have been mistaken for the intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit, swiftly moving into one of the bands originals, but taking you a couple of seconds to realise they were in fact not playing a cover. All that aside, the band put out a fair amount of impact considering there are only three members, and the crowd was well up for it. You had the classic “everyone get down to the floor, we’re going to jump back up in three!” moment, which got a couple of grunts from the audience, but this was not the last time there were going to be asked to do this during the whole gig. This move almost feels a little cliche nowadays, especially when it feels like you’re being asked to do it (if not once but multiple times!) at every concert you go to.

Generally speaking, ROCK BAND FROM HELL were quite entertaining, creating almost party sounding songs that warmed the crowd up well. Considering they were the first support, they did their job very well.

Rating: 7/10

We then had a slight contrast through the entrance of German metalcore group GHØSTKID. That definitely made an entrance, as the drummer leaned over his kit and shared an animalistic glare at the crowd. This atmosphere was only added to when the rest of the band entered the stage, along with their black body paint and white coloured eye contacts.

They started off their set by playing the title track of their latest album, Hollywood Suicide, dropping some groovy riffs and beats, whilst the mosh pit opened simultaneously. This was only exasperated as the two guitarists entered the pit themselves, dropping the hard hitting riffs to hit single Start A Fight, as the crowd circled around them. The impact they had on this small room was immense, with a pit to literally every song as the members threw themselves across the room. The energy was top tier, and the half time breakdowns didn’t stop coming.

About halfway through the set, lead singer Sebastian ‘Sushi’ Biseler, suffered a small mic issue but styled it out the point where most will have forgotten it even happened. It was very interesting to see a decent portion of the crowd disperse from the middle after GHØSTKID had finished their set, perhaps they played a part in the popularity of this densely filled gig. Some people were overhead commenting that BLIND CHANNEL would struggle to follow that performance…

Rating: 9/10

BLIND CHANNEL however very much held their ground. Launching onto the stage with hit single DEADZONE, the band had the whole crowd moving from the get go. This bouncy track had all you could want from an opening choice, a rolling riff, easy to follow lyrics and one hell of a catchy chorus.

They kept this energy going by playing set of new bangers and a few unexpected throwbacks. The crowd responded well to the newer material, but calmed slightly as some of the older tracks played. This points to the idea that a lot of the audience had been brought into the fanbase because of the band’s latest album, Exit Emotions. Another thing to consider is that when BLIND CHANNEL played this very same venue two years prior, their audience seemed to be slightly different. Off the back of the Eurovision success, a lot of the crowd consisted of younger girls in 2022, but this time around the room seemed to be full of a wider range. The venue also seemed to have doubled in capacity, highlighting how much the band has grown in this short time.

Some highlights of the set included a very commendable cover of the classic, BYOB by SYSTEM OF A DOWN, in which band member Alex Mattson (percussions and samples) came down from his DJ decks and took to some unclean vocals. This cover really ticked the fancy of the audience, gaining a lot of cheers as the intro played. Another nice moment was when the band played their single, Die Another Day which originally features RØRY. As it turns out, the band brought RØRY out at their London show the day after, but for this Nottingham gig, guitarist Joonas Porko showcased his vocal skills. It was nice to see this side of him, as with two vocalists already in the band, he doesn’t often get many solo sections. As mentioned earlier, there was another round of “let’s all crouch down and jump back up again” which doesn’t help anyone with bad knees, but the crowd played the game all the same.

To wrap things up, BLIND CHANNEL pulled out their notorious Eurovision song entry, and had the crowd putting their middle fingers up to Dark Side. It felt like the audience had one final hit of adrenaline as they started jumping to their hearts content as a chorus of singing voices chanted every word to this well known tune. BLIND CHANNEL did what they came to do: put on one hell of a show so that they and the audience could Exit Emotions together.

Rating: 9/10

Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in Nottingham from Em Coulter Photography here: 

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