BIOHAZARD (Live)

at Trillians, Newcastle, U.K., October 13, 2013

Anyone entering the venue unaware of who was on may well have thought they’d wandered into a Wild West brawl by mistake. This was now brawl however, just a manic, tempestuous moshpit as New Yorkers Biohazard whipped up their crowd into a riff fuelled frenzy.

This was their first shows in the UK in quite sometime and what better place to start than in the tight confines of the Trillians sweatbox. With the crowd standing toe to toe with the band this was one tight, intimate affair.

As soon as a head pummelling “Shades of Grey” kicked in, Trillians kicked off. The safety of the peaceful photo pit was gone, replaced by a heaving mass of sweat and muscle. Within minutes, with the encouragement of frontman Billy Graziadei, the band and crowd morphed into one moshing mass and at times there seemed to be more punters on stage than off.

The energy from the stage was totally addictive as the huge hulking riffs of Graziadei and Bobby Hambel hammered home with a deep, heavy groove while Graziadei and an imposing Scott Roberts traded chants with fury and venom.

There was simply no let up throughout the set, no ballads, no interludes just in your face Brooklyn Hardcore with “Tales from the Hardside”, “Vengeance is Mine” from their latest Reborn in Defiance disc and a particularly brutal “Punishment” all hitting home hard.

In many ways music has become somewhat stale and safe as corporate tentacles have pervaded every orifice of the business yet Biohazard provide a totally enthralling antidote to that. With a passion and energy that would create a fortune if bottled, their show is one invigorating ride from start to finish. Their commitment to their music is etched across their faces and borne in their sweat.

The bond between band and crowd was tangible throughout and as “Hold My Own” ended it was the band who was in the crowd, mixing and drinking with their fans without the merest hint of rockstar arrogance. This is what Rock ‘n’ Roll is all about. It’s the band, the music and the fans and nothing else matters.

To sum this up in one word? “Awesome!!”

Biohazard

Author

Mick Burgess

Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell! Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.
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