April 5, 2025
England’s While She Sleeps came back to Montreal and brought their friends with them
The British are coming! The British are coming! Sheffield’s While She Sleeps and Southampton’s Bury Tomorrow hopped on a plane and flew across the pond, met up with Iowa’s Vended – which everyone and their Grannie’s dog now knows is a band made up by the offspring of Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Shawn Crahan, and headed to Montreal.
If you want to be pedantic – or accurate, then yeah, there were other shows planned for this tour, but whatever, tonight was all about Montreal and that’s all we’re focusing on here. Alright?
See Also: Kylie Minogue at Bell Center, Montreal
It seems the lads brought the rain with them, which I’ll take any day over the bloody snow, let me tell you. However, with a lot of tonight’s audience having to wait outside the venue to get in, the Olympia had that wet dog smell to it tonight. (That’s a goddamn lie but a funny visual. Some did stink, though.)
Vended
For a young band with but a single EP and one album under their belts, Vended sure do tour a lot. Once again in Montreal, and the growth this young band has undergone is visible and audible; tighter, more aggressive and now fully in the face of their audience. It feels like we’ve watched this band mature and come into their own with set they’ve played here.
Tonight’s block consisted of just five tracks – Nihilism, Ded To Me, Am I The Only One, The Far Side, Pitiful and Asylum, but Vended made each track count. Hitting hard, interacting with the crowd and basically just having a good time doing it. Probably earning more and more fans with each performance.
At this point, I doubt Vended will ever get out of the shadow of being Slipknot’s kids, with two members of the band being the offspring of members of Slipknot, but then again they haven’t so much as tried to remove themselves from that stigma. In fact, they’ve fully embraced it by sounding exactly like their fathers band. In a weird way (because Slipknot isn’t weird enough!) having a band like Vended around ensures that Slipknot will continue after Slipknot is no more, if that makes sense. No doubt these guys are sick of the compassions but that’s part and parcel of being the sons of famous musicians. They aren’t the first and they aren’t the last to try make their own way from under a shadow.
But you know what, fuck it – if you can get past that and just accept Vended for what they are, you’re going to have a great time.
On their merits, Vended craft solid tunes and are well versed in their instruments – and not to repeat myself but that is probably a byproduct of growing up in Iowa, surrounded by the musicians that form huge bands like Slipknot and Stone Sour. I’m sure that comes with a lot of advice, and a chance to learn from guys that have been around the world and done it all. Seen it all.
Bury Tomorrow
The first of the two British bands performing tonight, Bury Tomorrow, walked out to the roar of the crowd – a capacity L’Olympia on a Saturday night in a city with multiple entertainment options. This though, was the place to be on this evening.
Stylistically, Bury Tomorrow are quite possibly the best match for a While She Sleeps touring partner, as the two groups employ much of the same song structures to the point where if you’re a fan of one of these bands, bud, you’re a fan of both of them. Therefore, this is a pretty logical pairing.
Both bands bring an incredibly melodic approach to what they do, largely in the clean vocal passages and massive guitar driven portions that scream to their crowds; this is where you go fucking nuts. Judging by the faces I laid eyes on, that is exactly what happened here tonight. Like clockwork.
Considering they’re on tour with While She Sleeps, I was surprised that they didn’t play Heretic – which features Lawrence Taylor of While She Sleeps on guest vocals. Alas, nay, ’twas not to be. Maybe a bit of a lost opportunity but what the shit do I know.
Early on, a fistfight broke out that appeared to be more of a one-sided affair, which earned the idiot combatant a five minute major and a game miss conduct; tossed the fuck out into the streets as was more than deserved. Imagine paying that much just to act the ape and get your ass thrown out of the show.
“Oi” said singer Daniel Winter-Bates, “I don’t want to see any fuckin’ fightin’ “. An Englishman that doesn’t want to see a fight. Oh my days! As an Englishman myself, I never thought I’d see the day.
Bury Tomorrow blasted through their set at a blistering pace, spinning about the stage and not missing a note. Impressive really. Their set seemed to vaporize into the sands of time. Done before we knew it.
“We’ve had five crowd surfers so far”, said Winter-Bates. “Last time we were here, we played for four hundred people and had about a thousand crowd surfers”.
“I’m looking down at these security guards and they’ve been working out. They got some pipes on ’em, and they are ready to catch you” he said, probably to a sigh from the security guards that now had to go into overdrive as the crowd surfing was sure to amp up – and it did. Winter-Bates wasn’t done yet, though, as he encouraged anyone that has never attempted to crowd surf in the past to try it out for the first time here, tonight.
As you might imagine; chaos ensues. The shadowpeople on stage now share the lack of limelight with the shaowpeople on top of the shadowcrowd. That is to say, we can’t see fuck all.
Prior to Cannibal, Montreal serenaded Bury Tomorrow with a round of the Ole Ole song. Seems to happening more and more these days. We’re such a happy-go-lucky bunch when we’ve had a few pints – except for that one guy that got tossed out in rain that is. Still! One bad apple…
While She Sleeps
Montreal knows how to make the best of any situation – like when the house DJ insists on insulting our ears with a barrage of terrible Nickleback songs prior to the headlining act coming out. So, what does Montreal do? Sings along. Thousands of people singing along loudly, in unison, to one of the worst songs to ever assault the airwaves. How You Remind Me. Fuck sakes!
Thankfully, While She Sleeps emerged out onto the stage mid-song, thus saving my last shred of sanity.
While She Sleeps began their set with two tracks off of their most recent album, the incredible Self Hell – starting with Rainbows then Leave Me Alone – which is a hell of a way to re-introduce yourself to your public. Seemingly everyone in the house singing leave me the fuck alone in unison was quite the memorable moment. Damn!
Almost verging on djent here and there, While She Sleeps sounded absolutely massive of the Olympia’s immense sound system – nobody was getting any sleeps in this room, mush!
While She Sleeps have grown more and more accessible as they’ve travelled their path, and while that is normally a dirty word in the vocabulary of extreme music fans – it can’t be argued that it suits these lads to a tee. What I mean by that, is that the heaving music realm needs bands that can come out and bang heavy tunes, but also create massive hooks and sing-a-long bits that draw in people that might not otherwise give a damn.
The fact that they can achieve that while still appealing to the average metalhead or hardcore aficionado is a special skill and one that I welcome. Simply put, While She Sleeps are a fucking fun band, especially when they’re live in front of you and doing their thing, yelling about how they don’t give a fuck. Naughty!
I was amped to see While She Sleeps play Four Walls again – my introduction to the band came in the live sense just down the street at what was then called the Metropolis (before branding venues with company names become the new normal. Capitalism! Am I right!) when they opened for Asking Alexandria and Bullet For My Valentine way back on May 7, 2016 – where the fuck does the time go. Their set on that night was largely taken from their Brainwashed album, as it was their newest release at the time, and the album that turned me on to the band.
Unfortunately though, this was the only track played off that record. I suppose with the decade since then, that they’ve grown tired of playing those tunes. Not to mention the plethora of material they’ve released since then, too. All is well, though, because the newer tunes are just as good as those early numbers.
The majority of their set was made up of selections from the groups last two records, Sleeps Society and their most current release Self Hell. Eight of sixteen tracks played, to be exact – and they sounded phenomenal in the live setting. I’ve missed their last few jaunts to the city, for various reasons all beyond my control and never once by choice, thus this was my first chance getting to hear songs from these two most recent albums live, and hopefully not the last.
While She Sleeps really are a band made for the live setting. Now, if we could just get the lights sorted out so that we could see the band, that would be great.
Read More:
>> The Damn Truth at Mtelus, Montreal
>> Mayhem at Beanfield Theatre, Montreal
>> Alcest at Beanfield Theatre, Montreal
As good as the music had been tonight, I’ll never understand the ideology behind metalcore bands and their hatred of stage lighting. Why must it also be a strobe light in my face. Why do you want to remain unseen. For what! I could just listen to your albums at home if all I’m getting its a stage I can’t look at for the strobes and terrible lighting. This completes today’s rant. Tune in next time for more.
Emerging into the sickly neon glow of the city lights, I realized I hadn’t eaten and was hungry… and at this hour, my options where a shitty excuse for a burger and fries, but at least I had coupons. Two for one, baby!
