The Dillinger Escape Plan

I’ve probably read or said something in the past about how Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato can literally spit fire on stage. Yeah, I’ve probably done that. Now, though, he is. Like, really.

Armed with a flaming, um, baton I guess, and a bottle of what’s probably rocket fuel, the already rough-voiced vocalist approaches front of the stage, purses his lips and blows. WHOOMPH! Fire! Yeah! Oh shit, he’s doing it again. WHOOOSH! Yeah! Only, isn’t that hair burning? And you thought there was nothing literal about the song title '43% Burnt'.

Obviously such pyrotechnics signal the show’s end. Appropriately, they’re the fieriest things about a set that never really fills the expanse of The Forum – going from The Garage in the summer to here only months later is tough work to say the least. Not that they’ve not got the songs for such a venue – many highlights from this year’s Miss Machine album are now received as fondly by the hardcore down the front (and in the immensely violent pit that’s broken out to my right) as those from Calculating Infinity. It’s just that there’s just not enough of the hardcore, yet. Tonight’s a double-headliner affair y’see, with tiresome post-hardcore oiks Poison The Well receiving the sing-along treatment from a select few stood immediately in front of me a set earlier. Surviving their monotonous drone is comparable to being stuck in a lift with any I’m A Celebrity… contestant – utter torture. 'When Good Dogs Do Bad Things' sees off the stray fashion-core types who’ve remained centre stage for DEP, the ever-growing pit forcing them to the extremities of the venue.

Still, whatever size the stage and however poor the sound, Dillinger know how to rip it up live like no one else. Ben Weinmann is the most animated guitarist you’re ever likely to see, and yet somehow manages to keep his shit together; I suspect his fingers may be glued to that instrument of his. Puciato, meanwhile, constantly stalks the stage, pacing from one side to the other, as if he’s sizing up his prey – us. When the time comes for the kill, he leaves nothing to chance: burn the remains, cover the tracks, make a clean getaway.

But do come back soon, won’t you?