Cancer Bats, Ignite, und The Knives

Ontario's hardcore punk outfit Cancer Bats have reached out from their humble Toronto home and achieved global domination on the punk and rock scene. They are always at home in the UK when visiting our shores and often put in memorable performances at the likes of Download, Reading & Leeds and Slam Dunk. It is when the quartet is faced with thousands of revellers and a larger platform as possible that they really thrive. They have a true skill in being able to transfer the aggressive intimacy of a basement club to a huge field facing a main stage.

They make sure the whole audience is involved during the sing/chant-along choruses, they jump on command and of course they mosh constantly. Whirring circles of bodies, dust and dirt emerge during 'R.A.T.S.' much to the twisted delight of Liam Cormier. The rest of the band does not seem to be as focused on the crowd as they lurch around stage thrashing out their blistering instrumentals at incredible speed. The whole crowd is battered, bruised and elated as 'True Zero' comes to a close and they have their arms raised in salute to the Canadians.

When artists fuse genres to create new and exciting music, it’s a demonstration of great skill and talent, and Ignite’s creating of their melodic hardcore music is something that I thoroughly enjoy, and has now become a mainstream genre. I’ve seen them perform countless times over the years, and they always put on a great show: they’re performance dedication and technique is of incredibly high standards, and they give every performance 110%, which is always completely contagious to the audience, who dance and sing along from start to finish.

They opened the show with their track Ash Return from back in the day, and had everyone singing along right from the outset. Their skills on their respective instruments are incredible, and some of the solos that they performed totally blew me away. Nik hill played an awesome solo, whilst Zoltan Teglas sang some incredibly high notes over the top, causing the audience to go crazy. It’s great that they put different spins on their music from the recordings, giving everyone something to really get excited about at their shows. Although their line up has altered considerably over the years, the band are all tight together, and you really wouldn’t know that they weren’t the original group.