Ice Nine Kills: The ‘Meat and Greet’ Tour Welcomes You to Horrowood

On a wet and rainy Wednesday in May, The Halls in Wolverhampton was overtaken by over 3000 metal fans for the highly anticipated sold-out Ice Nine Kills show. With only two shows in the UK for the whole European leg of the tour, it was safe to say by the time the support acts had warmed up the crowd, the energy and anticipation was at a boiling point.

If you are yet to deep dive into the band’s discography, since their 2018 release of The Silver Scream, the band has taken the horrorcore path with the basis of each of their songs based on a different horror movie or villain. Not only are their lyrics cleverly written so they don’t become a gimmick, but their stage shows have also become a full production theatrical endeavour full of props, actors and performances offering spectacular visuals for the audience to devour.

The band arrived in their formal wear and frontman Spencer burst onto the stage donning the infamous clear rain jacket and axe from American Psycho to open the set with fan favourite ‘Hip to Be Scared’, it was no surprise that the audience was completely enthralled, channelling all the anticipated energy into yelling alone to the ICONIC “Hey Paul” movie speech.

The band bounced from song to song without any real break in between—a commendable feat considering between each song there were props, costumes and set switchouts each time. The quick turnaround between each song kept the audience constantly engaged and eating out of the band’s hands throughout the entire set.

The show was so much more than your average concert performance. The vocal duties are split between the members allowing a combination of clean vocals and screaming harmonies to create one harmonious performance alongside allowing frontman Spencer to act and perform out the iconic horror movie scenes the songs are based on—some of which included I.T the clown, Texas chainsaw massacre and Psycho. The crowd was swept away in the fantasy as Wolverhampton got the pleasure of being graced with Spencer in a full clown costume devouring an unsuspecting Georgie on stage, threatened with chainsaws from actors in grotesque skin masks and witnessed the iconic psycho shower scene stabbing.

Overall, the show was a roaring success and opening night for the band, the perfect set-up as they embarked on their EU journey. The only downside was the lack of UK performances, having only two shows in cities on the more obscure side, Wolverhampton, and Portsmouth, is definitely a choice that has their fans begging for more so hopefully we see them return very soon.

If you have the opportunity to see Ice Nine Kills live, it is absolutely worth it. The show is a fully immersive visual experience more so than your average gig and this has really cemented the band as something special in the heavy metal genre. I have no doubt that they will continue to innovate and expand the genre to new heights as their career rises to new heights.

Listen to them now below:

Words and images: Georgina Richardson

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