LIVE REVIEW: Tremonti @ O2 Ritz Manchester

With a day job that these days consists of playing huge shows in arenas and at festivals across the world with ALTER BRIDGE, you’d be forgiven for thinking that guitarist Mark Tremonti might be content to almost rest on his laurels somewhat and reap the success he deservedly has earned as one of modern heavy music’s most beloved figures. That’s most certainly not the case however, and for the past seven years the axeman has in fact also spent his time fronting his own eponymous band TREMONTI – a project that most recently released their fourth album, A Dying Machine, back in June. Now on the road across Europe in support of that record, we caught up with the tour at the O2 Ritz in Manchester to see how the new material would go down live.

First up tonight are French metallers DISCONNECTED, who open proceedings with a confident and assured set of metalcore goodness from their album White Colossus. Packing a potent mix of roaring guttural shrieks and booming melodies, frontman Ivan Pavlakovic provides an instantly captivating presence, as he and his bandmates set about smashing tonight’s earlycomers around the face with a brief-yet-impactful set of crushing metal that seems plucked from the playbooks of KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and GOJIRA. Songs like opener Living Incomplete and For All Our Sakes might not be familiar to the vast majority of tonight’s crowd, save for a small dedicated contingent of French fans apparently present on the barrier, but the thunderous technicality and punchy riffing quickly becomes enjoyable, and by the time DISCONNECTED hit their final song, they seem to have most of The Ritz on their side and merrily headbanging along with gusto.

Rating: 7/10

Londoners THE RAVEN AGE seem to fare equally as well too, with their more trad-metal inspired take on contemporary heaviness doing a great deal to move the assembled audience about ahead of the main event. Following the brief atmospheric introduction of Darkness Will Rise, the chugging riffery of new song Betrayal of the Mind breaks through, bringing forth immediate comparisons to Silence In The Snow-era TRIVIUM, as vocalist Matt James (who joined the band back in April) puts on display his rather considerable talents. With their set consisting mostly of material from the band’s 2017 debut album Darkness Will Rise, those familiar with THE RAVEN AGE are undoubtedly loving every moment, as guitarists George Harris and Tony Maue weave both intricate patterns of melody and crunchy slabs of riffing into the likes of My Revenge and the thrashy Salem’s Fate. Another new cut in the form of Surrogate later confirms the band’s continuing efforts in crafting strong melodic metal anthems, and their apparent knack for throwing out gigantic choruses, and they eventually bring things to an end with the wonderfully pacey Angel In Disgrace providing one final fist-pumping chant-along for the Manchester crowd.

Rating: 7/10

After a quick changeover, a small army of cameramen then suddenly begin to take places around the stage as TREMONTI make their grand entrance. Indeed, the US collective are apparently filming their entire performance tonight for some kind of potential release, and this knowledge only seems to further heighten the excitement levels in the room. Striding out to thunderous applause, the quartet waste zero time before bounding into opener Cauterize and effectively unleashing hell, as several hundred manic fans proceed to go wild in unison. It’s the start of a quite frankly ludicrous evening for the band as, presumably spurred on by the presence of all the cameras, they set about putting on a ludicrously lengthy showcase of just about everything that’s great about their career thus far.

Naturally, the focus is mainly of A Dying Machine material, with nine out of the 14 tracks from the record getting an airing across a huge 21 song setlist, but the cuts range from their 2012 debut All I Was with the likes of early career ragers You Waste Your Time and So You’re Afraid, all the way through to recent ADM favourites like Bringer of War and Throw Them To The Lions. As you’d expect from a project led by such an accomplished musician, the sheer level of talent on display throughout tonight is frankly ludicrous, and the level to which Mark Tremonti himself is able to lock in with bassist Tanner Keegan and fellow axeman Eric Friedman on the quicker cuts like Radical Change is nothing short of absolutely remarkable. Just as impressive tonight however, is just how well the band’s more melodic material comes across. Possibly the biggest surprise of the night comes when mid-set, the band randomly decide to play monolithic power-ballad The First The Last live for the first time ever, inserting it between fellow mid-tempo lighters-in-the-air favourites The Things I’ve Seen and Trust. It’s a welcome surprise, presumably due to the filming, but something that definitely earns its place within this marathon setlist, and certainly appears to leave a few audience members looking more than a bit misty-eyed in the process.

Continuing on, the band end up flying through a whole host of brilliant material, from the lumbering stomp of Flying Monkeys, to the lightning-quick thrash metal of Radical Change and the aforementioned Bringer of War, to yet more brilliant balladry in Desolation and Unable To See. It really is testament to the brilliance of TREMONTI‘s catalogue that, for every Bringer of War-type thrasher, there’s a slower-paced melodic counterpart like As The Silence Becomes Me – all delivered with the same brilliant intensity and emotion, to the point where a pit-starter anthem like Throw Them To The Lions can be thrown out 19th in a set of 21, and there’s still people immediately ready to throw down to the glorious twin guitars of Tremonti and Friedman. As the early curfew begins to loom ever closer, TREMONTI finally close out with one glorious final blast of thrash in the form of fan-favourite Wish You Well, and quickly head off-stage, leaving the entirety of the Ritz content that they’ve just witnessed something truly special, whilst still holding out vague hope that there’s more to come. They’re sadly wrong on this occasion, but it’s completely fair given how long a show has just taken place. There’s also little room for disappointment as the members of TREMONTI then reemerge after a couple of minutes and proceed to meet every single fan who bought merch during the show in a mammoth session that threatens to run over into a looming club night within the venue. It’s a sweet gesture and one that, like the show, fans of the band are sure to remember for a long time to come yet.

Rating: 8/10

Check out our photo gallery of the night’s action in Manchester from Sabrina Ramdoyal Photography here: