Hatebreed/Crowbar/Caliban- Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms 15/03/05 By Andy Bartlett The last day of the UK tour stopped in Portsmouth, showing off some of the best talent in the metal industry. This was a sold out gig at the Wedge, so the venue became packed very quickly. Caliban showed themselves at about 8.30, they came on stage fired up for their last stop in the UK for a while. Playing much of the material of their new album ‘Opposite from Within’, Caliban had the job of warming up the crowd before Hatebreed. Tracks like ‘My Little Secret’ and ‘Goodbye’ were played with all so much passion. Caliban had a worthy pit, which started during their second song, but lasted till the end of their set and never lost aggression. They used up one of their newly found Trademarks, ‘The Wall of Death’, always a good method to intensify a crowd. The audience sung along to every word of Caliban’s set, and after last nights performance, it is clear that this band will be welcomed back to Portsmouth. I had never heard anything by Crowbar previously to this show, but was highly impressed by them. The heaviest of the three bands, but the hype they got previous to the show was over rated. Crowbar provided the more mature band out of the three, pure head banging metal was what was show by their performance. Hatebreed came on very suddenly after Crowbar, with a set that lasted for about an hour and ten minutes. They played various material from ‘Perseverance’ and the Roadrunner release ‘The Rise of Brutality’. Almost immediately, a pit was formed and bodies were flying. The whole venue became a war zone to the scale that being involved in the pit Could not be escaped by anybody. Most memorable tracks that were played were ‘Live for This’, ‘Another Day, Another Vendetta’ and This is Now’ from the Rise of Brutality album, and ‘I Will be Heard’ from the Perseverance album. I lost count of the amount of circle pits Hatebreed ordered, but I know that they didn’t last long due to the poor floor material of the Wedge. Just before ‘Live for This’ Hatebreed played a little teaser in the form of Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’ intro. Nearer to the end of the set, Hatebreeds Jamey Jasta announced that it was infact the Crowbar singer’s birthday, for a bit of humour to the show. The set ended with ‘I Will be Heard’, the pit went crazy. It was clear that the bands enjoyed playing at the Wedge on the last tour day, all three of them saying how the Portsmouth crowd gave them a big send off. So far this year, in my opinion, this has been the best tourí¢ä‰åŒ_ all three bands re-establishing themselves as big bands in the metal industry.