Live Review: Gnome - The Asylum, Birmingham
Support: Wall
2nd May 2025
Words: Matthew Williams
A warm early May evening saw me venture down to the birthplace of heavy metal, a city I don’t often visit for gigs, but with Belgian stoner rock trio Gnome in town, and no date closer to my house, I set off full of excitement. Touring in support of last year’s amazing “Vestiges of Verumex Visidrome” album, which appeared in my Top 5 of 2024 list, this was an opportunity that I couldn’t afford to miss.
Joining them on this six date UK tour, was Oxford duo Wall. Better known as Elliott and Ryan Cole from Desert Storm, they make one hell of a racket. After recovering from the shock of being charged £4.75 for pint of blackcurrant of soda, I stood and watched as the duo, with Ryan wearing his Oxford United shirt, took to the stage and quite frankly, played a blinder. A wall of feedback signalled the start of “Wrath of the Serpents” and it flows along at a decent tempo, before going up a few notches. Closely followed by the fuzzed up “Sonic Mass” we get a “Cheers, we are Wall from Oxford” from Ryan, before they launch into a deep and heavy track called “The Tusk” with lots of impressive cymbal work from Elliot.
The beats are steady and pounding, and a real highlight throughout their set, reminding me of Winnebago Deal in certain sections. “Speedfreak” and “Masking my Contempt” see the duo keeping that pace high, with fast solos, wrapped around the main riff, and a delicious bit of double bass work on the drums. Next up is a cover of “Karma to Burn’s “Nineteen” and it’s a raucous affair, so much so that Elliot loses a drumstick near the end. “Big thanks to Gnome for having on this tour” says Ryan, before they crack on “Legion” and then “Avalanche”.
They adapt their sound impressively, and I like the fact that there’s no lyrics, but just heads down, full throttle music, with loads of melody and subtlety, mixed with slower segments and a bit of psych. “We’ve got one more for you, come and have a chat and we’ve got merch at the back, this is Ignition” as they go into full Sabbath worship, with the floor tom getting a proper hammering, combined with a slow and heavy riff and piercing single pluck guitar movement. A great way to start the gig and they leave to a decent round of applause.
It’s not often you see a crowd full of red pointy hats and not think, “WTF are they doing?”, but on sale for a fiver a pop, there were plenty bought in anticipation of headliners Gnome. As The Jungle Book’s “I wanna be like you” gets faded out by the sound man, the trio waltz onto the stage to a huge round of applause. Straight into crowd pleaser mode with “Rotten Tongue”, the red hats are bopping all over the place as the trio are quickly into their stride and follow it up with the impressive “Bulls of Bravik” with the thundering bass of Geoffrey Verhulst a pleasure to hear in the flesh. “Thank you, Birmingham,” shouts guitarist/vocalist Rutget Verbist, “Are you having a good time?” he asks, and the crowd responds with a huge cheer.
With the drum intro from Egon Loosveldt ringing in our ears, we all clap along to “The Ogre” which sounds so beautiful. The bass is on fire, tempo changes all over the place, and cheers at the right moments, it goes down a treat, just before my favourite song “The Duke of Disgrace”, which is just awesome, and the crowd are bouncing with joy. The killer riffs of “Old Soul” when added to the gravelly vocals, combine to make this a full-on monster song. The slowness juxtaposed with the heavy section, is so damn good and the crowd cheer along.
“Thank you Birmingham, it’s time for glad tidings, from this lovely man” as Verbist hands the baton over to Verhulst and he leads into the epic “Anitbeast”. The instrumental track flows effortlessly and they show their diversity with the punky feel of “Your Empire”, which made me
stand and watch in awe of the trio. “I want to see you dance motherfuckers” shouts Verbist as they launch a series of songs, that I was a bit lost on, but nonetheless thoroughly enjoyed.
Back on familiar ground with “John Frum” and its huge bass sound, they are in full flow, and could play anything and the crowd would cheer, they really are that good. “Now we dance” shouts Verbist, as they play the excellent “Wenceslas” which sees the red Gnome hats going up and down across the venue. After huge cheers, the frontman announces that “We are Gnome from Belgium” just in case we’d forgotten, “and we’ve got 3 more songs left for you.”
They start off the trio’s final three songs with the magnificent “The Gods are Evil” that had me shouting the chorus at the top of my lungs, before “Kraken Wanker” hits us with its huge intro as Verbist asks one more time for us to “fucking dance” and dance they do. A slick intro to final song “Ambrosius” sees an appreciative and packed-out venue all nodding along in that traditional stoner rock way, and they applaud a band who have captivated them for 80 odd minutes to give them a night they and I, won’t forget in a hurry.
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