Bullet For My Valentine, Wembley Arena - music review

The tattooed, vest-wearing but gracious foursome gave it their good-natured all
Bullet For My Valentine
ANGELA LUBRANO
3 May 2016

Two of Bullet For My Valentine’s four albums have reached the British and American Top 10 but for all that the Bridgend metallers are an unheralded but genuine Transatlantic success story, this year’s Temper Temper failed to emulate 2008’s Scream Aim Fire and 2010’s Fever.

As if to confirm that their appeal has suddenly become more selective, last night Wembley Arena was half-full at best. They faced the artistic reality by including just two full Temper Temper tracks and a snatch of a third in a mash-up medley but to their great credit they ignored the reality of curtains halfway towards the back of the hall.

Whereas more spineless souls might have sulked or sniped, the tattooed, vest-wearing but gracious foursome gave it their good-natured all. The impossibly enthusiastic crowd responded accordingly, even managing the occasional singalong to the mostly unsingalongable and when, close to the end, baby-faced but sweary singer Matt Tuck announced that “this has been one of the highlight shows of my life”, it would have been churlish to doubt him.

Steeped in the galloping guitars of Iron Maiden (Tuck bellowed “scream for me London”, just as Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson does) and the melody-free rampage of Slayer, they were as heroically daft and as undeniably thrilling as a metal pantomime ought to be, despite there being no keyboards and little in the way of stage frills bar a couple of big screens.

Great balls of fire? Spinal Tap-style gurning? Teeth-loosening volume? Random running about on stage? A ghastly, uncalled-for solo by a guitarist (Michael Paget) wearing a sweatband featuring his own group? Pointless pointing? All present and correct and all delivered with straight faces by Unirony Maiden.

As the mosh-crazed audience dervishes demanded, every song (aside from the relatively hushed opening to The Last Fight), was a full-pelt, 100mph belter, with Tuck’s strangely winsome, sometimes overwhelmed vocals augmented by bassist Jay James’s Honey Monster backing growls. A fearsome encore cover of Motorhead’s Ace of Spades threw their own inferior songs into too-clear focus but for all the interchangeability of the rocket-propelled Tears Don’t Fall, the explosion that was Your Betrayal and the pained glory of Alone, Bullet For My Valentine were a hurricane.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in