Live Review: Party Cannon - Beta @ Rock City, Nottingham
31st January 2023
Support: Godeater
Words: Dan Phipps
It's a Tuesday night and it is the second consecutive death metal show taking place at Rock City (Beta) in Nottingham, with Scottish band Party Cannon gracing the stage for the most extensive headline run the band has made in the UK. The doors open promptly and the crowd is starting to head inside, with death metal fans young and old getting themselves ready for a display of disgusting IQ lowering slams.
With no local support on the line up this evening, first to grace the stage are Party Cannon’s fellow Scottish tour mates Godeater who right away begin to get the crowd accustomed to their brand of technical death metal. As the band progressed through the set what instantly caught my eye with the band was that they were not allowing their technical approach to limit the stage performance. Both guitar players Ross Beagan and Andrew MacDonald ensure that what they provide in their technical playing they match with a dominating stage demeanour, frontman Jamie Harrison prowls the front of the stage and his powerful vocals are a perfect addition to the band's musical output. Godeater provides thirty minutes of precision performing and the crowd are certainly responsive to the assault that Godeater is providing them with, reciprocating with plenty of movement going.
Now it's time to spend the next fifty minutes taking balls to the face… With the crap joke out of the way Party Cannon hit the stage and instantly whipped up fury, both by the band on the stage and from the audience in the crowd. Bass player Chris Ryan puts to bed the rumours that the songs on the bands most recent full length “Volumes of Vomit” are all about vile sexual acts by advising they are also about drugs, which he doesnt take as he is a good boy.
Along with providing a severe dose of the bands trademark hench slams, Party Cannon also ensure the crowd learn the importance of physical fitness and to ensure they hit their 10,000 step mark and invoking a chaotic circle pit which claims its first victim, a large inflatable whale, David Attenborough would of been pissed i'll tell you that. Having seen Party Cannon multiple times over the years in smaller intimate settings I had no doubts that the band had the ability and live performance quality to bring the same energy into a bigger live environment. I would even say that they found an extra gear to the performance that is being witnessed, the energy on stage is electric but the playing remains consistently tight even when needing to avoid dozens of inflatables which both they and members of the audience have brought to the occasion.
Of course no Party Cannon show is complete without the custom of having crowd members take part in push ups, which considering how nuts people have been going they are more than happy to get involved with, some even showing off doing them one handed.
Party Cannon and Godeater both took to the stage and delivered a high energy evening of death metal and the crowd loved every minute of it with both bands exiting to a healthy reception. It was an evening of brutality but more importantly good fun for all involved.
Header image credit: Tim Finch Photography
