The Blackout! The Blackout! The Blackout! play intimate venue in the Southwest.

April 14^th 2011 was the day in which Welsh band; The Blackout, headed towards Plymouth to perform in front of countless individuals at a local venue; White Rabbit.

Everyone in the venue was bursting with excitement and ready for the night ahead, which began with newly risen Texas-born rapper, Hyro Da Hero. Right from his opening song “Sleeping Giants” everyone began to cheer and jump around in front of him. Hyro Da Hero sounded very similar to a refreshed and revitalised version of Rage Against The Machine where both acts gel both hip hop and rock together to create an altered sound of music that is very different from other musical talents we have today. It wasn’t the last time the audience saw Hyro Da Hero due to being featured on The Blackout’s track “Higher and Higher”, he returned to the stage during the headliners set and got blown away by the support with that song and his overall performance.

Travelling thousands of miles from Michigan, The Swellers entered onto the stage and were all ready to rock. Having been around for 9 years, the amazing vocals of Nick Diener, lively bass from Anto Boros, dynamic guitar talent by Ryan Collins and the perfection of crashing cymbals by Jono Diener were definitely not to be missed. Performing a mixture of tracks such as “The Best I’ve Ever Had” from their many albums including recent release ‘Good For Me’ received a great response from the South West crowd and it was amazing to see everyone having a laugh. The Swellers are another one of those bands not to overlook and are supporting Norfolk-based band Deaf Havana on their UK tour 2012.

An enormous wait was over, the stage lights dimmed completely down; the crowd knew what time it was. All the way from Wales, The Blackout burst onto the stage where the audience in White Rabbit went absolutely wild and screamed at the top of their lungs.  From the very first moment Sean Smith and co-vocalist Gavin Butler sang the opening of “Save Our Selves” everyone could definitely tell this night would go down in Plymouth’s musical history. 

Subsequent to playing track after track from every album recorded, The Blackout were simply astounding to watch and if you didn’t know the meaning of up close and personal before, well tonight was a perfect example. The Blackout put on a high octane performance, which made the crowd develop high spirits, as well as the band due to the upbeat reaction they received from the audience. Sean and Gavin kept their extreme high levels of energy throughout and Gareth “Snoz” Lawrence did incredibly well considering he broke a few fingers just days before the Plymouth show. Ouch! The members of The Blackout were having a lot of banter with each other and the audience, until it got out of hand when an audience member shouted up, “you guys are crap and a perfect waste of airtime on the radio” to which Sean Smith responded, “if you think that and hate us then why did you pay money to see us?” We presume he left pretty quickly after that confrontation. Once the final single, “Never By Your Side” rang through the many ears, The Blackout thanked everyone for supporting them through thick and thin and wanted to let everyone know how much we were in their hearts as fans. It was a great night and to spend it with a room full of The Blackout fans was amazing.

Until Next Time.