Trivium: 10 Things We Learnt About ‘A Light Or A Distant Mirror’

Thanks to a certain virus spreading rapidly throughout the world, people everywhere have had to adjust to different ways of life and adhere to various rules and regulations enforced by the higher-ups to keep a lid on the contagion. In doing so, many lives have been thrown into disarray with many sectors feeling the pressure, none more so than the music industry. With bands not being able to tour, a lot of musicians have struggled to keep themselves afloat and continue their careers as full-time musicians. With all bands cancelling their tours at home and overseas and some bands holding out on releasing new music altogether, the future was looking bleak. Thankfully some bands have taken it upon themselves to think outside the box a little and attempt to carry on as ‘normal’ as possible. Online streaming shows have started taking off but it wasn’t until the global streaming experience known as A Light Or a Distant Mirror from TRIVIUM that we knew what musicians could make capable in dark times such as these.

Here’s what we learnt from the stream with insights from bassist Paolo Gregoletto himself.

The support band was perfect

Before we get into TRIVIUM themselves, we have to give a huge round of applause for the support act of the evening in British metal heroes SYLOSIS. The band was the perfect opening act with their blend of modern thrash with their huge grooves and seismic choruses. A support act was a first for streaming shows and made it seem more like a live show experience and certainly made the ticket price even fairer than it already was.

12,000+ tickets were sold

Speaking of ticket sales, Paolo claims that over 12,000 tickets for the show were sold (this included post-show night sales as tickets were available for 48 hours afterwards). The band were all ready to take their production on the road with MEGADETH until the world started falling apart but Paolo and the rest of the TRIVIUM guys knew they couldn’t stop the ball rolling from the momentum of their ninth release What The Dead Men Say. Paolo had faith in the die-hard base that they would be down for a show any way possible but states, “While everyone is doing their best to entertain their fans on the internet, the hardest ask is to get them to pay for it. If we were going to charge for it, the show would have had to be something a lot bigger than you’d see on Twitch or a Zoom call”. With Matt Heafy‘s streaming career hitting new highs, fans have become familiar with how tiered subscriptions work which meant they could get a rough idea on how much to charge. You would be hard to argue with the entry fee with the support, host Q+A, aftershow and the show itself.

The show was viewed in over 120 countries worldwide

According to the band’s statistics, the global event was streamed in an incredible range of countries all over the world including USA, UK, New Zealand, Switzerland, Denmark, Hong Kong and even countries such as Bermuda, Nicaragua, Mozambique and Nepal. This shows the true power of heavy metal, reaching so many different cultures and communities, all coming together for one spectacular moment.

Full Sail was the perfect venue

“We were really proud of this record so it felt like if we were going to do a live experience it needed to live up to what we felt like the record was set as,” says Paolo. “Full Sail has an incredible facility there, they’ve been doing this with WWE (NXT) on TV.” The band was all ready to take their production on the road with MEGADETH until the world started falling apart. “Since we recorded the record at Full Sail we reached out to them to see if they were interested and they were. It’s kind of a nice thing as it makes it come full circle. To record right there and have our live event next door, it was not only good for us but also for the school as it shows off their capabilities to pull something like this off. It was really cool to have all the operators and students there”.

Working with Sooner Ruthier was a smart idea

TRIVIUM managed to secure the services of renowned designer Sooner Ruthier to help design the set and create a lighting sequence. She has previously worked with bands such as MUSE, MÖTLEY CRÜE and KISS. “She’s one of the best lighting designers and operators in the business,” Paolo claims. “To have her there was really cool for us. She was there till two/three in the morning working on the lights in pre-production. She busted her ass and made it look incredible.” The set design was dark and moody but was contrasted well with powerful lighting and sharp production that helped boost the intensity of each track.

 The setlist was a perfect blend of old and new

As this was such a special occasion for the band and their fans, they had to make sure that the setlist was aimed at both new and existing fans. With such a strong back catalogue now it can be hard to whittle it down to a two-hour set, making sure to include all the hits but also throw in a few surprises and deep cuts to keep the die-hard contingency happy. “Most of the older tracks we had already planned to play in Asia and on the LAMB OF GOD/MEGADETH tour, but we weren’t planning to play that many new songs on that tour. We knew that if this was the one and only experience for a show for WTDMS we wanted to add a few more new songs. It was very important to have some old stuff in there though as this was now a headline show,” says Paolo. Dropping Pull Harder… in the middle of the set like it’s nothing is a testament to how impressive TRIVIUM’s back catalogue has become. They also added in some underrated gems like Forsake Not The Dream and Rain, while usual crowd sing-a-long tracks like Until The World Goes Cold and In Waves still sounded colossal even without the fan support. All tracks featured from WTDMS were played for the first time live but were performed with such impressive musicianship you’d imagine they’d been playing these songs for years.

Musical interludes were created for the in-between moments

Without the crowd there to experience the usual Heafy banter in between songs like normal, the band had to come up with something to fill the silences. “I thought what do we do between songs?” Questions Paolo. “Usually, we just changed guitars and you can hear the crowd chanting or Matt goes up and talks. We had to get creative and that’s where we asked our producer Josh Wilbur to create us about six interludes. The interludes were so cool I kinda felt maybe we didn’t need any talking, but decided to include a few but keep it to a minimum.” The interludes created were incredibly well put together and kept the show flowing throughout its runtime and allowed the tracks to blend seamlessly into one another. A great example of this would be the superb transition from Down From The Sky into Catastrophist. “I really liked that one,” agrees Paolo. “I can see us incorporating them more into future sets, just to give us a bit of a break especially Matt who runs about a lot on stage then has to talk a lot.”

Things can still go wrong

If you needed any proof that this show was indeed live and not pre-recorded, the start of song Rain was interrupted due to a broken drum part courtesy of the beast behind the kit, Mr Alex Bent. The drums obviously couldn’t handle the immense talent that man possesses but it also shows that it was indeed shot live in front of a global audience. Like the pros they are though, the band carried on with Matt addressing the viewers while the fixing was being done before shortly unleashing back into proceedings. Paolo explains, “the whole sell of the show was to see everything that went on prior and during the show, this includes getting to see how it came together and certain mishaps that can happen halfway through a show.”

It will see a wider release in the future

For those fans clamouring for a chance to witness the spectacle again or for the first time, fear not as there are plans to release it to the general public in the near future. When speaking to Paolo about a wider release he states, “we haven’t worked out the details yet but Roadrunner was down to do that. I imagine it’ll be in the form of some kind of download and we’ll probably put up a few tracks on YouTube prior to that. It’ll also be mixed and mastered as well so it’ll be like a proper live album. We also have all the raw footage so we could go back and re-cut some things or add in stuff from the after-show.” So keep your eyes peeled for that towards the end of the year.

TRIVIUM will keep building on the online connection with fans

TRIVIUM is known for having an unmatched dedication to their fan base and have constantly brought out waves of online content over the years as well as recently. “We want to keep pushing the boundaries,” says Paolo. “I remember telling Matt about Twitch a few years ago and now that’s become a big part of this band and how we can interact with our fans. By doing this stuff over the years we’ve learnt a lot about what the fans want and how we should interact with them which helped us to get to this stage we’re at now.” Paolo also goes on to mention a new rehearsal space is being purchased by the band, which we now know to be an airplane hanger. The guys will use this as their studio/live space for the foreseeable future meaning many more shows like this one could be on the cards. Incredibly exciting times for fans and the band themselves. This show was a huge success for TRIVIUM with also a portion of the proceeds going towards helping fund the music therapy program at Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital in Orlando.

What the Dead Men Say is out now via Roadrunner Records. Be sure to check out our feature on the band here!

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