Nile + Grave + Belphegor live @ Whelans, Dublin

Myself, Fonnie and Trotsky Lee headed down to Whelans last night to see Nile, Grave, and Belphegor. What a gig! Best gig I've been to since Malevolent Creation and Rotting Christ hit town last year. Metallica were good last month, but nothing beats death fuckin' metal played in a tiny sweatbox of a venue.

First up was Belphegor from Austria. I'm not familiar with their stuff, but enjoyed their set nonetheless. Brutally heavy, but very listenable. Nice to see the first band up get a good reception from the crowd too. I always feel sorry for support bands that play to an empty room, but luckily for Belphegor the crowd last night was pretty hardcore.

I love Nile and all, but I was really there to see Grave (Soulless is one of my all time favourite death metal albums along with Clandestine by Entombed). They must've spent about ten minutes on stage with their backs to the crowd doing nothing before starting their set and I was beginning to wonder if they wanted to be there at all. Anyway, once they finally got started all doubts were blown away. They rocked! My only gripe is that their set was way too short and they didn't play Soulless itself. They did however play Turning Black and Here I Die, two of the best tunes off of Soulless.

We got to meet them and the lads from Belphegor afterwards and have our photos taken with them. They were cool and did the whole zombie faces and devil horns bit for the photos. I asked them why they didn't play Soulless and they said it was because of time constraints. Fair enough. They're probably sick of drooling fan boys like me asking them about songs like Soulless when all they wanna do is play stuff off the new album lol.

Nile were absolutely amazing. The brutality and clarity of their sound was truly awe-inspiring. The vibe was killed a bit when someone threw a a plastic pint glass (oxymoron?) at the band and Dallas made clear his dissatisfaction. They kept giving out about people taking photos as well and had their roadie policing the crowd for snappers. Didn't stop me though hehe. Even got to talk to Karl Sanders briefly before their set and got my photo taken with him.

Great night overall. The place was packed and people had travelled from all over the country to be there, not bad considering it was a Tuesday night. Municipal Waste are playing in December, thinking of going to that. Anyone up for it?

Download the new grave album from rapidshare