Alter Bridge bandmates Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti must be really competitive. Or maybe they just don’t like sitting around the house. Kennedy, the group’s singer and rhythm guitarist, doubles up on those roles for Slash while nurturing a burgeoning solo career. Lead guitarist Tremonti, who co-founded Creed and co-wrote hits like the Grammy-winning With Arms Wide Open, has recently teamed up with members of Frank Sinatra’s orchestra to sing Ol’ Blue Eyes standards. Oh, and for the past decade, he’s fronted Tremonti.
Louder, faster, and heavier than any of his other musical projects, the quartet are currently taking their thrash-leaning songs to festivals like Download and Rock Am Ring, as well as smaller indoor venues like Shepherd’s Bush Empire — seemingly without downscaling their sound rig. Good thing the venue had its roof repaired six years ago: it wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to describe this all-out performance as seismic. And that’s exactly how this music demands to be heard. Ryan Bennett’s drums are intended to punch you in the gut, Tanner Keegan’s bass notes need to rattle around your skull, Tremonti’s solos and Eric Friedman’s riffs should rip through your torso, and the frontman’s voice — sometimes roaring, sometimes soaring, always melodic — must absolutely cut through it all.
Everything tonight, from that volume to the no-nonsense staging, serves what matters most: the songs and the audience. Against the no-fuss backdrop of their latest album cover and bathed in high-wattage rock show lighting, the band waste no time bounding into typically high-precision renditions of the sky-ripping Thrown Further and the more varied, but no less forceful, If Not For You. Both are new, from last year’s Marching In Time, but the crowd packed into the stalls and balconies respond like they’re old favourites.
That intense response — headbanging, rhythmic clapping, synchronised fist shaking, crowd surfing, circle pits — never really relents. And although Tremonti himself clearly knows how to work an audience, whether it be through simple hand gestures, instinctive exclamations, spinning his guitar around on its strap, or casual chat, he could get away with doing nothing at all. Each song seems to connect with the audience on a cellular level, whether it be bone crunchers like the pulverising Cauterize, apocalyptic Decay, or breakneck You Waste Your Time (with its fittingly fast solo) or comparatively quieter moments like lighter-anthem-in-waiting Not Afraid To Lose and imperial The Things I’ve Seen.
Catching Fire — with its savage riffing, double-time drumming, rumbling bass, and almost guttural vocal — burns particularly brightly inside Shepherd’s Bush Empire. A World Away expertly melds speed, brutality, and (on the chorus) beautiful, hopeful deliverance. The far-reaching Marching In Time, while not quite as dark, pushes that contrast even further and creates the show’s most epic seven minutes. The primal Let That Be Us, in turn, is almost all about Bennett’s machine-gun playing, Friedman’s relentless right hand, and Tremonti’s commanding vocals, while The First The Last is the kind of rousing alternative rock song that wouldn’t sound out of place at an Alter Bridge arena show and, with its “wooah wooah” refrain, sparks one of tonight’s loudest singalongs.
The set’s undeniable highlight, though, is Dust. At the frontman’s request the venue is lit up with the glow of mobile phones that sway gently to this unashamed power ballad complete with massive chorus and all-out guitar solo. During a show drenched in adrenaline, euphoria, and sweat, this moment of relative calm not only stands out, but emphasises that Tremonti have a whole lot more to offer than musical bodyslams.
Tremonti
Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
29th June 2022
Photo: Simon Reed
- This article originally appeared on Louder Than War.
Nils van der Linden 