Trivium @ The Corn Exchange 18th April

Trivium, by far the most exciting metal band around right now, and arguably worthy successors to god-like Metallica, were on full form on Wednesday night, producing the effortless, old-school/metalcore/thrash fusion that they have become masters of.

Opening act Sanctity gave a truly inspirational performance; obviously excited by the "awesome stage", the band got the whole audience sweating buckets before their first song was over. The newcomers gave a seasoned performance that at times surpassed Annihilator, and even Trivium themselves. Second act Gojira weren't particularly to my taste, partly because of the pretty shocking singing, but mainly due to the badly EQ'd drums that were so loud someone puked… other than that they put on a pretty good show, bassist Jean-Michel Labadie at times throwing his bass in the air and generally going a bit mental. Annihilator were obviously the highlight for a lot of people, and no wonder, they've had 20 years to build up a pretty impressive following. They too gave a faultless performance, despite several technical difficulties, finally resulting in the bassist having to mime the last song.

Finally the lights dimmed for the last time that night, and those who were expecting an understated entrance from this band were completely mistaken. After a couple of minutes of dramatic music that wouldn't feel out of place in a war epic, the blackout soon ended and Trivium got under way with a blistering one and a half hour show. Faultless is the word here, there wasn't one cock-up, false start (minus Travis forgetting to get back on the drums before their last song), pointless half-hour ramble or even any technical problems. The songs that truly stood out were Detonation, Requiem, and To The Rats, the latter arguably being their most thrashy song to date, and got the first of many circle pits going that night.

Heafy, obviously in his element as frontman of possibly the best metal band around was great at getting the crowd going, with plenty of the whole "you guys are f**king mental* sort of thing, but never too much. This obviously spurred Corey on, who was windmilling like a pro during Like Light To Flies, and giving the crowd high fives throughout the show.

Nothing could have prepared us for the final two songs, Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation and Pull Harder On The Strings Of Your Martyr. Matt knew it was what we wanted and obviously put everything he had left into the final two brutally awesome performances, and got the crowd going so crazy that I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought I wasn't going to make it out of there; the giant 50ft circle pit during Pull Harder was enough to make the most seasoned mosher mess their pants just a bit…

In years to come, I'm certain Trivium will be amongst the greats like Metallica and Iron Maiden in the heavy metal Hall of Fame, and this show was a perfect example of future giants coming into their own.

Cobie