First day of major strike in France and Motionless In White, who is currently in Europe to promote their recent album, "Disguise", were scheduled to play in Paris on December 5th 2019. Talk about luck. To be honest, with the chaos in the streets and lack of public transport in the French capital, I was quite certain the show wouldn't eventually take place -but hope dies last, right? Right.
By the time I made it to Trabendo, the opening act, Skold, was already on stage. Industrial sounds are not my cup of tea but the stage presence of the trio was rather captivating, especially the keyboardist who would hold the keyboards vertically on the floor and play on his knees, and later take refuge under the instrument's stand, with only his hands peeking to play. Picture The Thing from Addams family and the visualisation would be pretty accurate.
Time had come for the headliners to go on stage. One by one, the members of Motionless In White made the grand entrance and immediately got down to business. The sound was very clear from the get-go and, although the stage production was terse, the lightshow was on point, making up for the lack of props that MIW usually have on their American tours. Sure, the smoke machines were on overdrive but whatever, the band shone through the fog regardless. From the first note, the individual charisma of the band members was evident. It was none other than Justin Morrow, their latest recruit, however, who caught my eye the most and not just because of the green hair. Justin's energy was contageous, as he screamed along with vocalist Chris Motionless, posed with his bass, headbanged to the verge of whiplash and always moved in perfect unison with the other guys. It was also very pleasant to see that guitarist Ricky Olson undertook a great part of the clean singing, perfectly utilizing his warm timbre in the lower register.
As mentioned above, Motionless is on the touring cycle for "Disguise" so the main axis of the set naturally revolved around it. The hyped fans, who sold out the venue, were delighted to hear the new tunes (although our hearts would melt a little more with the occasional blasts from the past) and participated in every way possible. Crowdsurfers were already a common occurence by the third song, "Reincarnate", and continued throughout the set. One thing I noticed and actually really appreciated was that the crowd consisted of people of all ages; next to the youngsters, there would be older people who at first I thought were parents. Turned out they were fans like the rest of us, singing along passionately to most songs. We were for the most part located away from the madness in the front, which only got more intense when guitarist Ryan Sitkowski threw a couple of picks in the first rows and people essentially moshed to grab one. The riot, however, almost started when Chris gave away the roses on his mic stand during the final song. But I digress. The band were excellent on stage, having mastered the art of creating compositions that will draw the listener's attention; even if you weren't familiar with the track they played at a given time, it would be impossible to not bob your head or tap your foot to the rhythm. On "Final Dictvm" Tim Skold joined MIW. The two frontmen dominated the stage, with the band giving them all the room they needed to do their thing. The main set ended in the most unexpected way, as "Devil's Night" blasted and fans screamed at the top of their lungs. For the encore, the band treated us with "Eternally Yours".
The show was absolutely amazing and exceeded my expectations. If I'm being honest, I wouldn't have minded a couple more older songs in the mix, for old times sake, but the current selection was still very satisfying. It's an incredible feeling to see a band you've been following for a long time evolving to this degree and MIW deserves everything they have accomplished. I'm looking forward to seeing them again in the future.
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