[ENG] XtortYa + Ektomorf + Ill Niño – L’Empreinte - Savigny-le-Temple, March 21th 2017

L’Empreinte is a relatively small concert room which gives an intimate atmosphere, which I find perfect for tonight concert. There is only a few people in the room when the doors open, around 8 p.m, but it doesn’t matter for the Australian guys of XTORTYA who come on stage with a boundless energy they want to share with all of us!

Just arrived on stage, they start with the crazy Walk Away, followed by Can’t Fool With Me and Falling. The public quickly awake, taken in this wave of pure energy! Dreadlocks are flying with the headbang and the jumps, claimed by the band! I really want to underline Darren’s singing since the guitar player accompanies perfectly the singer, Ian.

The concert room is filling up little by little and XTORTYA still give us explosive songs such as Drifting and Can’t Take This! Simon, on the drums, and Aaron, on the bass, totally know their stuff and give a super powerful basis to the band’s music, a mix of Metal, Rap and Electro! From the song Not Mine, Ian starts to warm the public up by announcing EKTOMORF and ILL NINO but XTORTYA’s show ends at its climax with Boom Boom and Bullet Holes and Broken Bones, during which DJ B-Rad, the second guitar player and keyboardist, comes down in the pit (by the way, we felt that he wanted to since the beginning of the show by seeing him climbing on the amp!) to join the few people doing mosh pit already in the room.

I didn’t know XTORTYA when I came to the concert, but the band gave us an excellent set, of a level rarely seen and which sets the bar high for the two monsters who are EKTOMORF and ILL NINO, now expected by the public. If you have any occasion so listen to XTORTYA or to see them on stage, don’t hesitate because these guys have a real talent and a true wish of sharing the pleasure to be on stage as much as their power!

XtortYa’s setlist:

• Walk Away
• Can’t Fool Me
• Falling
• Drifting
• Can’t Take This
• Not Mine
• Boom Boom
• Bullet Holes and Broken Bones

EKTOMORF’s show starts before the stage management realized it! No seriously, I mean the band was regulating its mics when Zoltán, the singer, waved to the other musicians to start immediately the song Aggressor which opens their show! After thirty second, the lights go down and everyone really understands that the concert begins. The band is overexcited and all the members headband as hell! I must admit I was afraid about Támas’ mic because the really long dreadlocks of the guitar player almost make it fall a dozen times.

The songs follow each other with Move On, Evil By Nature and Holocaust, which I especially expected. The song, in memory of the six millions of people murdered by the Nazi regime, conveys a lot of emotion and strength. Then Fuck You All starts and continues to feed the public’s ardor, especially since the chorus is truly appreciated and sang with strength in the pit! Finally, the public totally let itself getting free to headbang and doing moshpit! Zoltán doesn’t give us a single second of break by always asking us to jump with him and scream. The bass player joins him in all of his claims to motivate us.

Gypsy and Show Your Fist open the way for Black Flag which is announced by the singer who explains that this song is important for the band since they consider tolerance as a major subject. No matter our skin color, our origin, we are all together to enjoy the show as brothers and sisters! Before the song begins, Zoltán invites us to sing the chorus together so let’s go one more time: “Black Flag! We raise the Black Flag!”. Then it is time to make the concert room burst into flames with United Nation and I Know Them in an electric atmosphere! With the drum in the middle of the stage, Róbert gives all his strength hitting it in front of us, encouraged by Szabi, on the bass.

EKTOMORF’s show ends with You Leech and Outcast, during which the public is transcend and sing loudly the last chorus! With this incredible finale, EKTOMORF leaves the stage under a thunderous applause.

Ektomorf’s setlist:

• Aggressor
• Move On
• Evil By Nature
• Holocaust
• Fuck You All
• Gypsy / Show Your Fist
• Black Flag
• United Nation
• I Know Them
• You Leech
• Outcast

And finally, a loud pit welcomes Ill Niño who is here to celebrate the fifteen years of its first album, Revolution Revolución. As I said it at the beginning, I came to the show especially for EKTOMORF so I don’t know ILL NINO but this last show seems full of promises and musical discoveries!

About the setlist, no big surprises since the band is going to play its entire first album, so God Save Us and If U Still Hate Me are the first songs to sound. Lazaro, the bass player, is just in front of me and shows his acrobatic prowess while he is playing (I still don’t know which god I am supposed to thank for being still alive because his foot went so close to my face really often). He is full of energy and will jump and dance during the whole concert! In English, with some words in Spanish, Cristián, the singer, explains how happy he feels to see us all reunited as a beautiful “familia”.

Then ILL NINO plays Unreal and Nothing Clear. With a carafe full of “French wine” in his hand, the singer asks us how to say “Salud!” in French and, as you probably guessed, all the pit, laughing, shouts “Santé !”. What Comes Around starts to resonate in the room, as powerful as the other songs. Ahrue and Diego, the two guitar players, are having a lot of fun and bombard us with some explosive guitar riffs! During this song I feel a bit tired, and Cristián sees it and comes in front of me, kneeling down to look at me in the eyes for some long seconds before putting his hand on my head, to comfort me. This moment was really strong for me and I thank him for taking care of his public which he encourages all the time, just as XTORTYA and EKTOMORF did it.

Then Liar and Rumba sounds loudly and clearly under the acclamations of the public. At this point of the show, the singer announces that it is Lazaro’s birthday so the pit starts to sing Happy Birthday to him. The rest of the songs follows with Press Disposed, I Am Loco, No Murder and Rip Out Your Eyes before the anthem of the album: Revolution Revolución! The mosh pit doesn’t get weaker, still accompanied with a lot of screams to the band, in English or Spanish. Oscar, on the percussion, and Dave, on the drum, support each other without fail and feed the Latin sonorities of the songs, mixing a dancing atmosphere and Neo Metal music. With You is the last song of Ill Niño’s first album and the band gets out of stage before coming back under the public’s applause. The band decides to end the show with three songs from their other albums which are Te Amo…I Hate You, How Can I Live and This Is War.

It offers me the occasion to discover another face of their music, less aggressive, more melodic, and perfect for Cristián’s clear voice. However, these three songs mark a too brutal difference with the rest of the setlist, according to me, but they show a musical universe far more rich and vast then what I thought. After shaking as much hands as possible, the members of the band leave the stage in front of a sweating but fully satisfied public.

After the end of the show, XTORTYA still warm the public by screaming “Merch! Merch!” to the beat of some songs which are played in the hall. The atmosphere is really relaxed, as Cristián asked for it during the show by saying: “Let’s smoke marijuana together!”. To conclude this report, I would just like to say that it was a real success! The three bands are a great combo for an explosive Neo Metal night! The public, even if we were just a few people at the beginning, took part in this show and answered to every claim from the bands to jump, scream and headbang. I had a really good time and I advise you to listen to these three bands because they are just awesome!

Ill Niño’s setlist:

• God Save Us
• If U Still Hate Me
• Unreal
• Nothing Clear
• What Comes Around
• Liar
• Rumba
• Press Disposed
• I Am Loco
• No Murder
• Rip Out Your Eyes
• Revolution/Revolucion
• With You

Encore :

• Te Amo… I Hate You
• How Can I Live
• This Is War