Black Peaks: 6 Things You Need To Know About ‘Live At The Brighton Centre’

As the lockdown over Britain slowly lifts, and life slithers back to some questionable state of normal, it’s still hard to swallow that there’s a little while to go yet until we’re all standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a sweaty room. Thankfully, one of Britain’s brightest hopes is breaking their pre-pandemic silence for a single night; on April 7th, progressive post-rockers BLACK PEAKS share their long-awaited livestream in partnership with Audiotree. The concert, recorded in the depths of winter, sees the quartet take to the 4,500 capacity Brighton Centre as hometown heroes. Ahead of the festivities, we caught up with BLACK PEAKS guitarist Joe Gosney to share a few things you need to know about Live From Brighton Centre.

It’s The Livestream That Nearly Never Happened

Whilst livestream concerts have been a dime a dozen since alt-metal innovators CODE ORANGE caught the eye of every band in the internet’s vicinity, not every band in the business has been as keen to keep up on the trend. It’s a sentiment that was shared wholeheartedly by BLACK PEAKS at first as Joe explains. “We were quite against the idea of doing one, we were very much of the mind that we were like ‘we’ll wait until the world kind of unfucks itself a bit and we can go back to playing shows as normal and wait this storm out.’” 

Having not played shows since before COVID-19 even came to be, thanks to vocalist Will Gardner’s battle with sepsis, they were beginning to get ring rust and the idea of getting back out there, with or without a crowd, was too good to pass up. “Before COVID, we weren’t able to play shows for quite a while because our singer Will was sick, so it’s been this huge gap, and the longer COVID went on, we were like ‘you know what, if we can figure out a way of putting a production together that we’re really happy with, and doing it all on our terms, this would be an incredible thing to do’. It’s something that we can give to our audience who’ve possibly missed not seeing us for a while.”

It’s The Biggest Venue They’ve Headlined 

BLACK PEAKS are by no means minnows in heavy metal’s pond; having supported the likes of DEFTONES, MASTODON, and SYSTEM OF A DOWN as well as steal slots at Download and ArcTanGent; they’re still climbing their way up to the top rope of alternative music’s wrestling ring. Live At The Brighton Centre see’s them take to a stage they could only ever dream of playing. “We knew we wanted to do it in Brighton, and The Brighton Centre is the biggest venue that there is, and in any sort of normal scenario we would have never had a chance to play a venue like that, we’re not big enough as a band to do something like that.” 

The Band BLACK PEAKS Dream Of Being

The ample space The Brighton Centre afforded and awarded the quartet was like handing over the keys to Legoland to a kid; they took their two cents and made it ten bucks. Using their experiences of supporting bands on stages of this size, they scaled up their vision for BLACK PEAKS and put it into practise. “We’ve played supports before where we’ve been on these huge stages but you’re set up in front of the other band’s equipment, so usually you’re packed into a much smaller space, and you’ll play for half an hour and just do your thing,” explains Joe assertively, expanding. “But this was such a different thing being able to use The Brighton Centre to its full capacity, and being able to set up on this massive stage. We’re all facing inwards and we have all these lights set-up, it’s really special you know.” 

Not only is the livestream a special occasion for BLACK PEAKS but a special moment in which they’ve truly seen the shape of things to come for them if they keep travelling down the long and winding road. “It was this crazy thing of being able to be the band that we wanted to be, we’ve had the vision to be that which the size of our audience just hasn’t allowed us to be. The scope of what this band is trying to do, we were able to go and do that for a day, and document it which for us was a really special thing.”

The BLACK PEAKS Set You Never Thought You’d See

If you’ve ever sat through a band bursting through their hits at breakneck speed on a stacked-to-the-rafters festival bill, then you’ll know that not every band can just pull out a ‘for the fans’ set. With an audience sat in the comfort of their homes rather than standing on their feet in a sweaty room, BLACK PEAKS could bring out a side of them to play they didn’t think possible. “Usually for a live show, we feel the need to kind of keep a flow going throughout the set to play a lot more of the more upbeat songs to keep the audience moving, and to create a vibe for a live show with people in the room but this was so different because there was no one there. We kind of felt we could showcase more of a cinematic side of the band, and play a lot of the longer, more drawn out tracks, and it’s resulted in this really different show and it’s like more of the band we were looking to be so it’s a really unique take on us and we’re all so proud of it.”

ARCHITECTS and BIFFY CLYRO Caught Their Eye

Once BLACK PEAKS had settled on sliding into the livestream slipstream, they took time to study the competition and keep a close eye on how to approach it. With their minds set on shooting for the stars, they found their biggest influence in the arena-conquering conquests of BIFFY CLYRO and ARCHITECTS. 

“I definitely watched a few live streams that I thought were amazing; I thought the BIFFY CLYRO one was incredible, and I thought the ARCHITECTS one was amazing as well,” explains Joe, almost in awe of their peers, before adding on just how much of an influence the latter was. “It was shot at a very similar time to the ARCHITECTS one and I think you could draw similarities in the way both have utilised the empty venue space as a vibe for this show. We really didn’t want to have there be any awkwardness in between songs and actually, we kind of used this weird atmosphere that is in the venue that it hasn’t seen people through it’s doors for so many months, like, you see these pans and these shots of parts of an empty room, of an empty venue, it really gives you the scope of what it’s like at the moment.”

They’ve taken stock and gone back to basics

As much as a livestream concert is more than welcome from the four-piece, it’s been a hot minute since we’ve had a full-length to forage through; with the critically-acclaimed All That Divides having dropped way back in 2018. You may have thought that somewhere between a life-threatening illness, a global pandemic, and playing on purpose to an empty room that you’d feel more fired up for getting back into the swing of things, but for BLACK PEAKS, it’s been a time to take stock and strip things back.

“Our approach to how we operate as a band was so different before the start of all of this to where we’re at with it now and it’s not that we’re any less hungry for getting out there and for writing music, and playing music, and touring and whatever but beforehand we were always of the mind that we had to go and do everything, and we had to take every gig we were offered, and there was so much urgency to what we were doing that I think we were losing sight of the longevity of what we were trying to do,” explains Joe exhaustively, before swinging it round positively, admitting. “It’s always been ‘go, go, go’ and ‘what’s next, what’s next, what we aiming for next’ and actually just having a bit more time to reflect and take stock is you know, you’ve gotta find positives in the shit that’s going on and that’s been one huge thing for us, we’ve all had the time to reflect on what we’ve done and we’re starting to learn how we can use that to make ourselves the best band moving forward.”

Live At The Brighton Centre takes place from 20:00 on Wednesday, April 7th. Tickets for the livestream are available now and can be purchased here.

For more information on BLACK PEAKS like their official page on Facebook.