View Gallery

It did not take very long for Carcass to come back to Montreal as headliners after their tour as direct support for Amon Amarth last December. For the occasion, they had Municipal Waste, Sacred Reich and Creeping Death as opening acts at the Corona Theatre. On this hot day, fans were excited to get their dose of grindcore, thrash and death metal.

Creeping Death got on stage earlier than expected and started their set as most fans were still waiting to get inside the venue or waiting in line to get their merchandise. Their death metal/hardcore music got people moving pretty quickly even if there were not a lot of people in the pit area. The band played songs from their full-length album as well as from all of their EPs ad included the song “Intestinal Wrap” from their forthcoming album called Boundless Domain. The musicians were very dynamic on stage but sadly there is not a lot of variations in their music from one song to the next.

Up next is Sacred Reich and we can see that this time Phil Rind is all fired up and all smiles. Their set started with “Divide & Conquer” but Wiley Arnett had guitar issues and left the stage while the rest of the band continued the song and returned at the end of the song. The crowd started a big mosh pit as soon as the pounding riff of the song “American Way” was heard. Once again, their song selection is focused on their most recent album with four songs that are welled spaced with older songs in between them. Being an old school thrash band, Phil asked the crowd to see how old the crowd was and as expected, many were as old as him, but to his surprise, there were also new generation of fans that were seeing this excellent band for the first time. 

Phil was very dynamic on stage and was interacting with the crowd as much as possible. “Independent” and “Death Squad” were two oldies that fuelled the long-time fans and gave them an excuse to keep moshing. As always, Dave McClain was bashing on his drums like there was no tomorrow and he was all smiles when looking at the fans pushing each other during their set. Joey Radziwill was also all smiles and was always on the move or interacting with the fans. The band came back for their encore with “Surf Nicaragua”, their usual set closers and fans simply went crazy. Sacred Reich is one of those bands that always give it their all and they opened the eyes of many younger fans. But for the diehard fans, this set was too short and they would love to see them do a headlining tour on their next run or at least be the direct support to the headliner.

It was now time to see Municipal Waste do their thing and fans started to push each other like there was no tomorrow as soon as “Demoralizer” started. As always, Tony Foresta has tons of energy but always seem to have a tired voice. He just seems to have too much fun on stage and I think that that takes its toll very quickly on his voice. He interacts with the crowd constantly and tells the fans on the balcony to come party with their friends in the pit a few times during their set. We can see mosh pits and circle pits throughout their set as fans are really enjoying themselves. Many songs were off of their most recent album (Electrified Brain), but the band swapped a few songs on the fly and replaced “Unleash The Bastards” with “Pre-Game” and “The Art Of Partying”. The band also played their classic hits like “Beer Pressure”, “Headbanger Face Rip” and “Sadistic Magician” as fans headbanged. 

Waste containers started flying around over the crowd at some point and Tony even through another one in the crowd from the stage to get things more interesting. As usual Tony asked fans to crowd surf during the song “Wave Of Death” to give a good workout to the security crew in the pit! Their set ended with their regular anthem “Born To Party” and what a party it was! I can’t wait to see them again and I’m sure every fan that were at the show felt the same way!

It did not take very long for Carcass to get on stage and the fans were eager to see them again as headliners. Jeff Walker, Bill Steer, Tom Draper and Daniel Wilding quickly got on stage and started things off with “Kelly's Meat Emporium” and “Buried Dreams”. The band had many LCD screens in front of their back line, and even the kick drum had LCD projections on it. That was the first time I was seeing such a thing and I must say that it added another dimension to their show. The band did a great job of mixing songs from all their albums and fans were loving every second of it. Jeff was full of energy and had a lot determination. 

He interacted with the crowd in French as much as possible with what he remembered from his school days and that was really appreciated by the fans. They played all their hits like “Incarnated Solvent Abuse”, “Corporal Jigsore Quandary” and “This Mortal Coil” and fans only asked for more. The band left the stage after the succession of the songs “Ruptured In Purulence”, “Heartwork” and “Carneous Cacoffiny” only to be encouraged by the fans to return for an encore. Carcass came back to conclude the night with the songs “Exhume To Consume”, “Tools Of The Trade” and “316L Grade Surgical Steel”. 

As one would expect, the night was a huge success and it was contagious to see the musicians enjoying themselves as much as fans in the pit.