Seeing Asking Alexandria playing their first show ever in Brighton at The Brighton Centre is a real treat for all the local metal heads, especially after the successful Breakout festival earlier in the year. Brighton's metal fans have never had it so good.
 
Before the show kicked off we meet up with Ben Bruce, who formed the group and plays lead guitar and James Cassells the drummer since 2008. Brighton was the final stop on their UK leg of the tour, which was supposed to be the end of their world tour but it seems they never stop touring. They have played quite a few impressive places now.
 
“This year one of my favourite shows was Sydney Soundwave Show, that was just mad” said James and Ben chipped in with “I loved South Africa, Johannesburg. It was our first time we’ve toured over there, we tour so much we never get to see anything of anywhere, except for the inside of venues but in Africa we actually made the decision to go out. We did Safaris, that was cool, it was a little bit like a holiday and the show itself was just insane. Our first time over there and there were thousands of kids turned up. I was like ‘Oh My God’. The overall experience was a lot of fun. I even stroked a baby lion.”
 
As far as the UK was concerned Ben and James agreed The Roundhouse in London had really stood out. “The Roundhouse was fantastic, we’ve sold out Brixton Academy, we’ve also done Wembley arena. I personally prefer The Roundhouse to both of those venues, it’s a much cooler venue… aesthetically it’s awesome. The problem for us as a band, is that we never get to hear what we sound like, and we never will, which sucks. You just can’t get that representation through your fold backs and to know what it’s going to sound like as a whole” said Ben. “You can never get the feeling of the PA, you can record it in the highest quality possible, but you’d never have that effect.  You’d have to be there. Since they’ve renovated the PA, it’s got a really amazing quality to it as well as amazing lights, while the stage and everything about the venue is very modern” James added.  
 
When asked about the Brighton show they were a bit disappointed to be ending the UK leg with a show that had not quite sold out. “It would have been nice to play at a slightly smaller venue so we could have a sell out show, but you know…” said James. When we finally got into The Brighton Centre's main hall it looked a good seventy five percent full but I guess when you have sold out bigger places that might still feel a bit of a let-down… I don't think a single member of the audience had that on their minds though, they were ready to rock!
 
Unfortunately I missed the opener Secrets but arrived just in time to catch the start of Crown The Empire. It's quite easy to see the attraction of having two singers in a heavy band like this. Firstly you add a bit of variety with one taking the melodic parts while the other does the dirty grunge bits. David Escamilla share the vocal parts with Andy Leo in Crown The Empire and together they make a nice mix, whether its them trading lines or singing in harmony. The added advantage of two singers is you can have one at each end of the stage whipping up each half of the audience into a frenzy. In fact they were the perfect warm-up act as they had a great stage presence and were continually jeering up the crowd. By the time they wrapped up their set with The Fallout everyone was eager for more.
 
The audience were quite young, with a few shell shocked fathers who had tagged along to keep an eye on their younger ones. I think some of the fathers may have been wishing they had stayed at home. I imagine there were a few deaf teenagers in every school and collage of the county trying to stay awake the next day, especially as it would be a Monday. On stage next was The Ghost Inside who said  the first time they ever played England was in Brighton of which they had fond memorises. This time it was the end of the tour for them and all the support bands who were heading back to The States after this show.
 
The Ghost Inside is a more traditional metal line up with drums, bass, lead & rhythm guitar and Jonathan Vigil providing the vocals. All of the bands on the bill tonight sounded heavier live, as they should do and The Ghost Inside are pretty heavy even on record! They kept the momentum going well and proving they don't take themselves to seriously even had a comedy moment when a line of guys came on stage wearing, what appeared to be nothing but a towel round their waists, lined up with their backs to the crowd and opened the towels up. Luckily they had their boxers on underneath as they wiggled their asses at the audience before being chased off stage by the band. Not sure if it was a last night of the tour treat or a standard part of their set. Either way it was an enjoyable and memorable half hour of music and fun from The Ghost Inside who I'm sure will be back in Brighton again sometime soon and well worth checking out if you like your music loud and in your face.
 
For a short rest bite I headed to the bar so my ears could recover, getting back in position just as the lights dimmed as Europe's The Final Countdown blasted out at full volume. The song may be older than most of the people there but everyone knew the lyrics off by heart. When the song ended and the lights went off there was an almighty roar from the expectant crowd. The stage was set with the drummer on a riser in the middle, a staircase either side leading up to platforms on top and a huge Asking Alexandria logo at the back. While Danny Worsnop's vocal mic was centre stage draped with two flags, The Union Jack and St George's Cross.
 
James Cassells kicked things off with the drums pounding out while the guitarist appearing on the top platforms and making their way down the stairs to the stage as the other joined in. Their music is heavily influenced by the L.A. metal scenes of the 80's and 90's and their on-stage presence also borrows heavily from the likes of Guns n Roses, Cinderella and Mötley Crüe. A great light show perfectly in pace with the music and the band running all over the stage making sure they get seen by everyone. They even have their own power ballad now with Moving On which they did 'for the ladies'. With the right mix of comedy banter between songs to make it feel a bit more personal they soon had the crowd eating out of their hands.  
 
Earlier when talking to Ben he had said “When writing our old album, we used to listen to the genre, and draw influences from that.  Now when we’re writing, we don’t listen to any bands. We kind of don’t listen to a lot of bands that are in our scene, per say, it’s weird.  We’ve kind of learnt over the years what kind of band we want to be, I think we just kind of work together on what kind of feel we want to have and we’ll just sort of write until it works.” They obviously do still know a few as during the set they broke into a few bars of songs by some of their peers between songs. The latest album and slick stage show seems to prove that whatever they are doing is ticking all the right boxes.
 
When they announced the last song the crowd booed. To which Danny replied 'There is a bit of paper over there that dictates our lives'. The Brighton crowd piped up with a chant of “f**k the piece of paper” rolling over and over. The band all look quite amused with it and said they would never have expected to hear a crowd chanting that, before launching back into the last track The Final Episode…
 
As they left the stage to cheers of 'one more', 'more' and comments about paper Ben Bruce held up three fingers to the delight of the crowd. After a short disappearing act they were back again and launched into Killing You and The Death of Me from the new album and the crowd went wild. Considering the young age of most of their fans I imagine video is quite important to a lot of them and Asking Alexandria music videos for Killing You and The Death of Me really stand out.
 
When asking Ben about the Killing You video earlier he said “It’s very easy to understand, the whole video which starts with the girl ignoring phone calls from her family. It’s very easy to push your family aside and go down the wrong path in life and forget that you have a support system behind you. If you let yourself forget who you are, somewhere along the way you are inevitably going to going get lost. Basically what this girl does, she ends up in Hell, kind of thing, and at the end of the video, she is running away and she is actually in the vending machine”.
 
In the Death of Me video a young boy is led by a man into a showroom full of women, going through various seductive poses. Basically he is tempting the young boy, is trying to encourage young boy, to choose his path.
 
They wrapped up the show with Poison from their From Death to Destiny album then they all came to the front of the stage, taking a bow, thanking the audience and throwing a few plectrums/drum sticks out into the crowd. It looked like they enjoyed the gig and there were a few thousand fans pilling out of the venue still buzzing from the experience.
 
I imagine this is one of the heaviest gigs to have taken place in The Brighton Centre and hopefully it's not 'a one off' but a trend Asking Alexandria have started. The band were then heading off to Helsinki the next day with four dates in Russia… “We are finishing out the year in US and Canada, and then we’re off for Christmas and to the studio” said Ben so hopefully there will be a new album and tour news early in the New Year.
 
Review: Jonski Mason
Interview: Alexandra Lea.