Wrexham Central Station, 27 November 2007

Since receiving Silverstein’s brilliant new album, ARRIVAL & DEPARTURES, I’ve been desperate to see the band perform…

Silverstein are from Canada, part of the VICTORY RECORDS roster and are one of their fastest rising stars due to their sensitivity to heavy, emo and melody! They take three incredible ingredients and blend them into an explosive one!

Wrexham is one of those ‘One Horse Towns’ set out in the eastern Welsh Borderlands, nothing much goes on there, but everything does! Bands ride through on a regular basis at the town’s #1 Venue Central Station. The promoters of tonight’s show Chaos Theory are trying to create a scene in the town and have had Fightstar, Coal Chamber and Enter Shikari play their nights, and are staying the course. The fact that tonight’s show is rather sparsely populated dampens their spirits not, and event main promoter Ian Shaw is in fine fettle laughing and joking around the place!

But I digress. We are here to see the band, and the band appear to be seen, exploding onto the stage like lightning bolts and tearing through some amazing versions of ‘Still Dreaming‘ and ‘If You Could See Into My Soul‘ and a show-stopping ‘Worlds Apart.’ It’s evident that they have come a long way over the last few years and are now turning into one of the best bands of their genre, with the twist in the tale of them moving away from being just ‘another one of those bands.’ They now posses the songs and the delivery system to make them work. Front man Shane Todd has matured into someone who knows how to pace himself and deliver precise vocals, but he has also learned how to work a crowd, and this he does with ease. The rest of the band are tighter than a Scotsman’s wallet and the whole performance is one of the best I have seen from the left-field side of rock where many of these bands hang!

Silverstein really need to get on a big support tour to take them to the next level; they have the sound, the songs; and in Victory they have the support of a leading independent label. It’s funny how in America you get tours with 5 or 6 bands of the same ilk or label on tour together, which I think is cool and is the way forward. The recent Black Crusade arena tour proved it can work, the next generation of rock fan is here and ready, the promoters are too, Bring It On!

Negatives… I have to say that the lighting was really haphazard with the band often in blazing light or no light at all, while the soundman really needs to understand there is more to power than just volume!

That said, we really must take our hats off and encourage more gigs like this, because the smiles on the faces of the crowd summed up that fact that they were loving it and happy to be out; hanging with their friends, listening to the music they love, loud as fuck, no parents (it was a 14+ gig) no pressure, no cool; enjoying great music - for that alone is what all it’s about. I wish this place would have been here when I was 14, I might not have had to go to Liverpool to see The Clash and The Pistols. Now that would have been a story to tell…

Jj: 2007