Avenged Sevenfold
w/ Mendeed and The Blackout
@ Manchester Academy
22-05-05
reviewed by lex

*****

Welsh band The Blackout showed promising new British talent. Sounding a cross between Taking Back Sunday and Funeral For A friend with a bit of The Used thrown in for good measure, they’re bound to get a lot of fans.
They had a good onstage presence and their banter was quite amusing. They might have charmed their way into making people go check them out.
Scotland’s heavy metal band, Mendeed chugged out riff after riff, threw out guitar solos and got every kid in the venue to throw devil horns into the air. They’re definitely a band to watch out for.
After disappearing for nine months writing and recording new material there was a lot of anticipation as to what Avenged Sevenfold would deliver tonight. Would their new songs reach the high expectation surrounding them?
Well, judging by tonight, hell yeah!
New songs Burn It Down, Wicked End and (first single) Bat Country show much promise for the new album.

Songs Trashed and Scattered and Beast and The Harlot have only been available on the internet for a few weeks and already most of the kids were singing along to every word.
It was the oldies though that got the biggest reception. M. Shadows still had the ability to pull of songs like Eternal Rest and Chapter 4. And all of them sounded astouding resonating through the venue.
Guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance mesmorised the crowd with their axe shredding.
If you’ve never seen Avenged Sevenfold before then I urge you to do so as they really are a band you have to see live.