Concert review: Of Mice And Men, Chelsea Grin, Motionless In White and The Devil Wears Prada. By Alex Bock

Wörgl, Komma, June 20^st, 2017

It’s summer and it’s festival season. Hundreds of bands are swarming the country and contrary to some years it’s also the perfect weather.

During all those big weekend filling events a tour announcement came a few months ago that was kinda surprising, because for one it was only a really small tour (three dates), they only hit smaller venues and it was an awesome combination – Of Mice And Men, Chelsea Grin, Motionless In White and The Devil Wears Prada. Since there was no German date for this line-up I decided to visit my friends in the neighborhood and drove to Wörgl, a small town in Austria, not too far away from the German/Austrian border.

First time I’ve been to this venue and I really liked it. It’s a two-story building with entrance, bar and merch on the first floor and the big room with the stage on the second floor. Perfect division. If you want to chill even in-between shows, you can grab a drink downstairs and have a decent conversation. I also checked their time table. They have some awesome shows coming up. If you’re close to that area, you might want to check in there.

Show start was announced for 7 pm, which is pretty early, given that many people have to work late hours and not everyone lives close by. So when we got to the venue at about 6.45 pm there weren’t to many people hanging around, a fact that clearly changed as the night progressed.

The night started out with an energetic performance of The Devil Wears Prada. Vocalist Mike Hranica’s screams mixed together with the clean vocals of guitarist Jeremy DePoyster is a perfect combination. Perfect example for that is their latest release ‘Worlwide’. They just recently put up a video for that song on youtube. Check it out here:

The Devil Wears Prada are currently on a huge European/UK tour, which lasts until the beginning of July. Check out their facebook page for upcoming dates.

After a short break, Motionless In White entered the stage. Clearly the appearance of the audience in the first rows changed during that set. I guess since on that run MIW didn’t play any festivals/shows in the southern part of Germany, many people drove to that show to catch the band live. Probably the most diverse band appearance-wise, they started their set with a classic, ‘Abigail’, followed by the very first release of their recent record, ‘570’, the song that marks the 10-year anniversary of the band. For the whole set, fans were screaming and singing along, a clear sign that they are more popular than they might have expected. Listening to people talking, not everyone did know them beforehand, but they sure had some new fans after they left the stage. A young guy even had the once in a lifetime experience of joining the band on stage and taking over the vocal parts of Chris Motionless for parts of a song. It was the guys birthday. He’d written a sign saying that and it got spotted by the singer, so they took him up on stage. Probably a birthday he’ll never forget. Unfortunately, the seven songs were over far too soon. Hopefully they’ll be back soon. First rumors about a headlining tour in January / February are already making rounds. So, fingers crossed!!

Chelsea Grin, a more regular visitor in Europe, took the stage afterwards. They were probably the heaviest act that night, which changed the audience close to the stage once again. There were the classic mosh pits and circle pits. The band definitely kept the heat the other bands built up and got the crowd going throughout the whole set. They will be back in November for the Impericon Never Say Die tour.

Finally, the undeniable headliners of the night entered the stage, Of Mice And Men. They didn’t play a proper tour since their vocalist Austin Carlisle left the band by the end of 2016, because of health reasons. The band decided to move on as a four piece with Aaron Pauly, who formerly sang the clean vocal parts, taking fully over on vocals. Surely a challenge, since you can easily blow your voice, when you don’t train properly for that. Of Mice And Men released two new songs, written for their current line-up, called ‘Unbreakable’ and ‘Back To Me’, which got many positive responses. But can they perform their old songs as well? Well after that night, it’s safe to say, they CAN! Loosing a band member is always hard and you never know, if it’s still working with the remaining members, but it seems like the band grew into it. It’s still a tight unit and none of the fans turned their backs on them. The responses that night were great. Everyone sang along to their well known songs, but also to the new stuff. After the show the whole band came out to talk to the people, take pictures and sign stuff. Of Mice And Men will be back in Europe in November supporting Five Finger Death Punch and In Flames. Make sure to catch them at a place near you!!