We got down to Motorpoint Arena Nottingham to check out Parkway Drive...
The last time a member of the Nottingham Metalcore scene laid eyes on Parkway Drive was no doubt from the cramped interior of their sold-out 2018 Rock City show. It’s refreshing to see them upgrade to a much bigger venue, and despite the winter chill looming over Nottingham the energy in the room was on fire – literally.
First support Thy Art Is Murder grabbed attention with a friendly and very Nottingham “Y’alright yeah?” before destroying us with a wall of death two songs later. While the lads of Killswitch Engage, having not been back to the UK since supporting Iron Maiden on their 2018 Legacy of the Beast tour, march in to Thin Lizzy’s The Boys are Back in Town.
I couldn’t have expected the carnage that followed in the next hours as the crowd stood in darkness drenched in sweat – those who were present at the previous Rock City gig wrongfully beginning to mentally compare the former to the present.
Motorpoint Arena Nottingham is the biggest UK venue the Australian hailed band have played to date, and on this late January evening most possibly the coldest. But in true nature they didn’t disappoint, lighting the room ablaze, not a single body was left unmoved after demands of: “Get you’re f**king feet off the goddamn floor!”
Light shows, whiplash-inducing breakdowns and fireworks galore, the room was a vibrating mess of headbanging blurs being sucked into a circle pit blackhole.
The slower tempos of Writings on the Wall were rightfully places in the middle of their hour and a half set as, accompanied by a quartet of violins and cellos, the crowd was lead in chance to breathe, Winston taking the opportunity to thank the eager fans for making it to them on such a cold evening saying: “I just wanna take a sec to say ‘How the f**k did it get to this?’ The first time we played here was the first ever time we played in the UK. You guys have been amazing since day one, I never thought in my wildest dreams we would be here, the pleasure is all ours! Cheers!”
Waves upon waves of crowd surfers took their chances as Parkway Drive left with an explosive finale, frontman Winston shouting: “We burnt all the oxygen out of the room but at least we had a good time!”
Put simply, they know how to get a room bloody moving!
Parkway Drive played Motorpoint Arena Nottingham on Thursday 31 January 2019
Motorpoint Arena Nottingham website
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