LIVE(STREAM) REVIEW: Ice Nine Kills @ The Silver Stream, The Worcester Palladium
With the music industry in a limbo of uncertainty, adapting to this unpredictable climate is the key to survival. Bands like CODE ORANGE or FEVER 333 that have their wits about them have been quick to grapple onto this next chapter, turning the physical into digital and expanding the reach of niche genres onto a global, worldwide platform. One band that has pushed all efforts to deliver a show-stopping performance, using innovative, out-of-the-box methods to work around social distancing limitations is ICE NINE KILLS.
Their latest livestream show, The Silver Stream, could have just been a re-run of old performances for nostalgia’s sake, but no. This Boston five-piece pulled out every stop to make this a phenomenal, exciting, and engaging performance without even being in the same room.
Horror being the part and parcel of this band, The Silver Stream borrowed clips from their Worcester, MA tour of The Silver Scream album but padded it out with sketches between to keep fans entertained and make the bang worth the buck. Before the show began the band took us on set behind the making of their favourite horror movies, giving a personal touch and emphasizing their passions for the horror noir shared with their audience. Mocking webcam-horror movies like Unfriended, the band create a sketch within the online web conference where each of them is plucked off one by one by a murderer who preys on their band internet. It gives nice breaks between each pre-recorded live set and, though fake, uses a realistic medium to give that realistic “are they actually dead?” vibe.
Alongside this hilarious thriller-sketches were fun quizzes as you watched, live feeds to show fans partying along at home, and mock-advertisements for fake horror movies or products that just didn’t exist. In every possible way, ICE NINE KILLS. made this more than your average live stream and catered to their audience as much as possible.
Though the future for live concerts is uncertain, it’s interesting to see how bands are flourishing in these climates now they have the creative capabilities to extend the theatrics of their shows to new heights. Sure, you’ll miss getting drenched in beer or taking a swift punch to the gut in a moshpit, but for the time being online live streams are becoming the necessary supplement the music industry needs to survive, and ICE NINE KILLS are taking the possibilities of that medium to new heights, setting the bar for bigger names with bigger budgets to really step up their game with how they deliver an online gig.
Rating: 9/10
Check out a selection of photos from the hometown show at The Worcester Palladium, Massachusetts from Jason Walton here:
