This is one insane tour from looking at the poster alone. British Power Metal legends from London, Dragon Force merged with Swedish Heavy Metal band, Amaranthe. A sold out tour and thankfully we managed to get in to witness this insane show at Manchester Academy, which I’m surprised was the venue of choosing and not something like Manchester Victoria Warehouse, the queue for this was down the road back to Manchester University’s Museum, the last time I saw the queue for this venue this long was for Anthrax two years before.

Coming in as support for such an insane show is Moldovan heavy metal band, Infected Rain. A band formed in 2008 with seven studio albums already released, this level of crowd is not something foreign to them. The entire room is stacked with the doors already being open for an hour at this point, giving the venue enough time to fill out. Infected Rain are a band full of heavy breakdowns and harsh vocals that are gorgeously done and a hell of a lot of dreads swinging around. To say this four piece blew me away is an understatement, I was so excited to leave the photo pit to just join in with the rest of the crowd with this kind of vibe.

Vocalist Elena “Lena Scissorhands” Cataraga is badass as a person. This woman stands on this stage or kneels down, and owns the room she’s performing in front of. Her screams come close to that of Jinjer vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk, you can’t compare the two or put them next to each other and say “this person has better vocals” because both are just as insane as each other. The reaction I had for the first time years ago to Tatiana’s vocals was copy and paste matched to when I first heard Elena scream, it was goosebump rising and eye opening.

Guitarist Vadim “Vidick” Ojog has to have some form of skill to not get his dreads caught in his guitar with every single flick, or at least have them not get in the way. But watching him move around without a care in the world and hit every single chord with ease was amazing to witness.

They’re not new to the scene in the slightest but they’re a band that you need to catch if you can they’re even on the Bloodstock 2024 line up so check them out if you’re heading to this too, but Infected Rain were one hell of a support act to kick off an insane night.

Setlist:

1. The Realm of Chaos
2. PANDEMONIUM
3. VIVARIUM
4. Fighter
5. DYING LIGHT
6. NEVER TO RETURN
7. BECAUSE I LET YOU
8. Sweet, Sweet Lies

With a start time of 8pm, Dragon Force had their time to shine. The stage had been given a complete redesign, with neon light tubes decorating the front of the stage to create a barrier on the edge, with large Arcade consoles on both sides of the stage playing various random videos throughout the performance. And holographic images being played in front of the drum kit that I won’t lie I struggled to keep my eyes off. There was not one single bit that you only focused on with this set, your eyes moved everywhere just in case you missed something.

Everyone knows that Dragon Force takes a lot of inspiration from Video Games if they set up on the stage wasn’t already obvious enough. So they all came on in very simple black T-shirts and Black Skinny Jeans but also with neon glasses that stuck out above anything else.

They started off the set with Revolution Deathsquad, now I went with someone who has seen Dragon Force many times over the past 12 years, and in his words “They were incredible and way better than Download 2018”, I’m going to guess with those words we don’t discuss the events of that performance at Download Festival 2018.

Now they did an amazing performance, they had shock factors and just blew the roof off. Including guitarist Herman Li licking his guitar strings on the body of the guitar mid performance, and Sam Totman with touring bassist and now full time member Alicia Vigil climbing on top of the arcade consoles.

Overall incredible performance, however as a metal head and a Swiftie, I’m not loving the Wildest Dreams cover. For me personally that song is better slow and soft and relaxed, hearing it in power metal format was a weird experience that made me pull questionable faces throughout, but that’s me being a Taylor Swift fan watching it and being very confused. However My Heart Will Go On by Celine Dion can be done as a power metal song. I realised, it had an amazing take on the song and done perfectly well because that version done on a ship needs to happen, it would be insane and work so freaking well.

One odd moment that doesn’t involve the covers was the random burst of “YORKSHIRE ” chants which quickly got a lot of “UNITED” chants thrown back to the original chanters. Which was a really weird moment, which you could tell the band felt the same with since they’re from London and we weren’t in Yorkshire, therefore no need for the “Yorkshire” chant in a Manchester crowd with a non-Yorkshire band.

When the band did the metal “peekaboo” as I call it others may call it an “Encore” the lights were down and two massive inflatable dragons came up from both sides of the stage, for those in the crowd we could only see two sets of lit up eyes rising high above us before the stage lights hit and we saw the dragons fully inflated, with sparklers going off from the front of the stage before the final song Through the Fire and Flames which for those who don’t regularly listen to Dragon Force will remember this song from Guitar Hero one of the funniest games of all time. Which was a performance to end all performances to say the very least.

I won’t lie, I don’t know how you could beat a performance like that, but the final band of the night, Swedish heavy metal band Amaranthe, were here to take us home.

I will throw my hands up right now and say that before this night I hadn’t listened to Amaranthe or even thought to check them out which was a mistake I can say that now. But when I was in that photo pit and vocalist after vocalist popped up in random places during Fearless that shocked me, because different types of vocals were being heard before seen which sent your mind everywhere.

They didn’t have the same effects to the level of Dragon Force but mostly a simple stage set with nothing in your face, but they did deliver a very bouncy and fun set that had the entire crowd awake and loving life.

They have a very different energy and a different approach compared to the previous bands when it comes to their performances. But with three vocalists you think would make it a bit difficult performance wise, but Elize Ryd, Nils Molin and Mikael Sehlin traded their individual responsibilities well. For me Mikael’s harsh vocals were amazing and I loved everything that came with it with how it was delivered throughout each song on the setlist.

But no one could ignore the incredible clean vocals provided by Nils Molin, who managed to really work on all of the songs and even made some of the band’s older tracks one of his own in his own way.

You could tell everyone in this crowd was happy with what they were witnessing. With new songs like “The Catalyst” and “Damnation Flame” it was as if the set had found its momentum and everyone in the band was riding the vibe that came with it and made this performance amazing!

Words: Jacob Robinson & Lauren Allard

Images: Lauren Allard

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