Today is Valentine’s Day, and regardless of anything else, it’s a great night for shows in London. Black Light Burns, Wes Borland’s side project, are playing at the Underworld and Frank Carter’s Pure Love are playing at XOYO. The Underworld has a great turnout for the former, and it feels like the room is full of Black Light Burns fanatics rather than the curious Limp Bizkit fans you might expect, which is lucky because they couldn’t be further away from Wes Borland’s day job.
After support act Jayce Lewis successfully warms up the room, Black Light Burns come onstage to ‘Stop A Bullet’ from their first album, ‘Cruel Melody’. From the off, it’s clear that tonight is going to be simply incendiary. There are no costumes or any of the other theatrics Wes Borland is famous for with his other band Limp Bizkit, but tonight he is a million times more enthralling than usual. It’s an intense show, and almost two hours long, but Black Light Burns are nothing less than mesmerising.
Tonight’s set seems to be in favour of ‘Cruel Melody’, probably their most popular album. It makes sense, because the songs – ‘4 Walls’, ‘Coward’, ‘The Mark’ etc – sound unbelievable live. They’re powerful enough to make every single person in the room go into a Black Light Burns trance. Spectacular.
The rest of the set consists of tracks off 2012’s ‘The Moment You Realize You’re Going To Fall’ – ‘We Light Up’ etc – and a couple off their most recent record, ‘Lotus Island’, like ‘It’s Good To Be Gold’. Tonight’s most popular song is ‘Lie’ towards the end of the set, which makes the room explode with excitement. This is the moment that truly sums up tonight.
Black Light Burns are nothing less than enthralling tonight, and with any luck, they’ll start touring more. This is clearly Wes Borland’s baby, and that passion shines right through. Incredible.
LAIS MW