Review: Trivium at The Pyramids Centre, Southsea

Fans of the metal band were asking, ‘Why aren’t you playing in my town?’ on social media.

So the band deliberately snubbed the usual tour stops like London, Manchester and Glasgow and instead hit smaller places like Lincoln, York, Kilmarnock and Portsmouth.

It was a shrewd choice as The Pyramids was packed full of youngsters and old heads alike, looking forward to hearing tracks from new album Silence In The Snow.

A vast back catalogue – the latest is their seventh album in 13 years – meant 100 minutes of thrashing, crashing and riffing from a group that believes they are a better live band than they ever have been.

But is that truly the case? I’ve seen Trivium a number of times, both indoors and at festivals, and this ranks somewhere in the middle.

They dip into tracks from nearly all their records so there is something for every Trivium fan here and it helps that the venue is smaller than the band is used to, delivering a certain intimacy which can be lost elsewhere.

The stage banter seems very rehearsed but the band seem as tight as ever, even with new drummer Paul Wandtke.

It turns out pestering your favourite band on social media does get results.