Erra, Make Them Suffer, Void of Vision & Novelists Bring Metalcore to St. Andrew’s Hall

On a mild Tuesday evening on May 28 in Detroit, as the clouds filled the sky with a foreshadowing of showering weather, fans packed into St. Andrews Hall to experience a night of metalcore with bands hailing from all over the world.

 

NOVELISTS

 

 

Hailing from their French homeland, Novelists made the trek overseas on their first tour in the US, opening the show for the night. They were quickly welcomed with open arms with fans wasting no time to let out their energy to their set. Each member had an impressive stage presence and appeared as comfortable as they would be back home. I am confident they gained many new fans that night, myself included.

 

 

VOID OF VISION

 

 

Next to keep the energy flowing was the Australian metalcore band Void of Vision. With no introduction antics, Void of Vision got right down to business upon taking the stage with lots of movement, heavy riffage, and crowd interaction. Although they were only the second band of the night, Void of Vision spawned some of the first crowd surfing of the night, as leather jacket and pant studded vocalist Jack Bergin continued to feed the crowd and feed off of their energy.

 

 

MAKE THEM SUFFER

 

 

From the opening notes of their track “Ghost of Me,” the crowd riled up as vocalist Sean Harmanis moved violently before he and the crowd shouted the first words “See you when you hit the bottom” before the crowd completely let loose. Another product of down under in Australia, Make Them Suffer didn’t need to command the audience, as their presence merely spawned it. As a personal bucket list artist for myself, they exceeded my already-high expectations for their set. Continuing with recent singles and fan favorites such as “Epitaph,” “Hollowed Heart,” and finishing with “Doomswitch,” it was a miracle that the crowd had any energy left for the night’s headliner.

 

ERRA

 

 

Taking the stage at last was Alabama-hailing headliner Erra. With an impressive stack of lights shining their earliest of light cues, the opening notes to their newest album opener’s “Cure” rang out from guitarist Jesse Cash. As the bendy, melodic riffs emanate from the stage to the crowd, the party was just beginning.

 

 

As identified by vocalist JT Cavey, more than half the audience was seeing Erra for the first time on this night, which made for a consistent energy expenditure in the pit. Although the band played lots of recent hits from their newest album and their album previous to that, the long-term fans would be pleasantly surprised to hear deep cuts from 2013 and 2011 including “White Noise,” “Dementia,” and even encore “Skyline” from their 2016 album “Drift,” which was granted to the audience after minutes of chanting “ERRA! ERRA! ERRA!” following the band’s “last song” (we never believe them do we?).

 

As the final notes rang out, the satisfied fans wandered into the streets and filled the underground venue The Shelter to flood the tables for merch shopping and chats with the lingering bands and friends.

 

See if Erra is coming to a town near you at errastore.com.