So this is my review of House, Papa Roach & Stone Sour at Brixton Academy 11/12/12

For months, I had been waiting to see Papa Roach and Stone Sour performing together at Brixton Academy, so much so that I had completely disregarded the support act. Despite my lack of excitement, the four piece Essex band ‘Hounds’ were surprisingly good. The electro punks showed clear influences from bands like The Prodigy, which stood out in their debut single ‘The Wicked’. While their sound was very different to the headliners, they certainly hyped up the audience.
This however, was nothing compared to the reaction when the lights came up and Papa Roach began to play. Excitable shouting and screaming came from all around as Jacoby strolled on stage, starting off the set with ‘Still Swingin’’, the debut single from their 2012 album The Connection. Their performance was fast and exhilarating; the only downside being that it was over too soon. While guitarist Jerry Horton demanded attention as he showed off his impressive skills, there was no doubt that Jacoby stole the show. Proving to be an outstanding front man, the singer was constantly running around the stage and jumping into the photo pit. At one point, the singer put on a polar bear hat given to him by an audience member, keeping it for a number of songs before throwing it back into the surging crowd. Despite their relatively short set, the band squeezed in some early songs among their more recent hits, including ‘Between Angels and Insects’ and ‘Dead Cell’ from their 2000 album, Infest.
The audience had barely enough time to comprehend Papa Roach’s astonishing performance before Stone Sour hit the stage. Vocalist, Corey Taylor, wasted no time introducing the band or songs, as they leapt straight in to Gone Sovereign and Absolute Zero, from the band’s latest album House of Gold & Bones Part One, released in late October. Three songs in and the singer had already ripped his trousers as a result of thrashing around the stage in excitement, revealing his Superman underwear to thousands of fans. The rest of the band seemed to fade into the background, with the enigmatic singer soaking in all the attention. After what seemed like no time at all, the band left the stage, after closing their set with yet another new song ‘Last of the Real’. You could almost hear a sigh of relief as Corey Taylor re-entered the stage only moments afterwards, as the audience realised that the night had not yet ended. The singer’s voice echoed through the venue as he did raw, acoustic covers of ‘Bother’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass’. The crowd was eerily quiet as Taylor began singing, as if in awe of his haunting voice and taking in the atmosphere before the concert finished. Little did they know that arguably the best part of the night was still to come. After Taylor’s short acoustic set, the band came on stage for the second time to perform one last song; ‘30-30/150’. With the crowd turning into a blur of jumping, moshing and crowd surfing, it seemed like the only way to end such a concert.