Few farewell shows carry the weight of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s final ever UK performance, given that some fans have already said goodbye to the outfit once before, with myself being in attendance for their final Nottingham show in 2017. A reroute for the show into London’s Kentish Town Forum actually suits the event better than the originally planned Brixton, as the whole ecosystem of Kentish Town seems drawn and buzzing around this show. The return of Dimitri Minakakis alone is a huge draw, but combined with Calculating Infinity being played in its entirety, and supports from the excellent Frontierer and Vower, this was a must see.
Frontierer
Things kick off with aforementioned Scottish mob Frontierer, who have gone strength to strength in every trip they make down from the great north, especially in aid of Chat Pile in 2023, and the Dillinger-adjacent link of the Greg Puciato fronted Better Lovers at the start of last year. Opening with ‘The Skull Burned’, Frontierer wasted no time in plunging the room into complete sensory overload, Chad Kapper immediately clambering down onto the barrier to barrage the front row in vocals. ‘Tunnel Jumper’ and ‘Lightshow Paralysis’ followed in quick succession from the now decade old Orange Mathematics. Pedram Valiani and Dan Stevenson built an impenetrable wall of guitars with Valiani holding his guitar aloft like some sort of worship, while Stevenson grinds his head against one of the amp towers, two kinds of people. Kapper’s piercing screams cut leave few moments for pleasantries but they do find time after ‘The Molten Larva’ to express the admiration for their headliners in Dillinger, and this pairing feels like a match made in heaven, and more so by accompanying track ‘The Damage and The Sift’, which lends quite well as an ode to Dillinger.
The remainder of the set leans on both ends of their catalogue, with the more recent ‘Corrosive Wash’ and ‘As the Night Wept’ being sandwiched between Orange Mathematics staples ‘Mt. Swath’ and show closer ‘Bleak’, with Stevenson and Kapper flinging themselves into the crowd, where Kapper bellows face to face with fans in the pit, and Stevenson is carried aloft to close out the song. These were an incredible burst of energy to begin such a big send off from the UK, and thank god these are a band that’s sticking around.
Vower
VOWER presented a shift down the gears in terms of pure ferocity, but didn’t give an inch in terms of atmosphere. The band have barely been around for two years, with my personal first experience of them being an unforgettable Radar 2024 set only a couple weeks removed from those final Palm Reader dates. To be at this stage in such a short period, main support to a band of legendary status as Dillinger, is huge for them. For opening honours, they opt for the yet to be released on streaming ‘Sink’, from what was on the setlist on stage and is an exciting morsel of where the band are bound next. They have two very fruitful EP’s on deck, and follow with a strong trio from last years A Storm Lined With Silver EP, with ‘Deadweight’, ‘Stuck’ and ‘Dawn in Me’ all back to back before Josh McKeown has a very non-chalant chat with the London crowd, greatly juxtaposed to how intense he is when performing. ‘Eyes of a Nihilist’ from their 2024 debut is next in line, and shows off how tight the band are instrumentally, each member of the front line consisting of Rabea Massaad, Joe Gosney and Rory McLean feel like they are on their own planes of existence, and yet are completely in sync. The set ends with a triumphant sandwich of track from both EP’s, beginning with ‘False Rituals’, before bringing it forward to ‘Satellites’ and ending in 2024 with arguably their most prolific track, ‘Shroud’. Vower are rapidly rising in the UK scene. Now’s the time where they really have the chance to wow fans, bigger shows, bigger releases, both feel like they’re on the way.
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Now trying to add any additional flare to The Dillinger Escape Plan’s set feels a bit fruitless. They’re one of the most energetic, unpredictable live acts in history. Everyone in the room knows what they’re in for. Calculating Infinity, played front to back, and a wave goodbye at the end. That said, the return of original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis did bring with it an air of grandeur. Not to be outshone, Ben Weinman promptly flips one of the speaker wedges and begins jumping on and off it ‘Destro’s Secret’ and ‘The Running Board’. There’s an urgent uptick in the crowd as they go to completely losing their minds, more so when Minakakis climbs down on the barrier for the unexpected ‘The Mullet Burden’ this early in the set. The energy off stage is just as hectic to match, as there’s an everpresent pit in the centre of the floor that makes the forum a hazard to traverse during ‘Clip the Apex’ and title track for the album of the night, before a very surprising cover of Ministry’s ‘Just One Fix’ which leant itself more to the wheelhouse of bassist Liam Wilson and James Love, also guitar, as less chaotic, but equally as intense.
Minikakis waxes about the true talent on stage being the four men he shares it with, and that he really only got the call because he “could shout on beat”. Long considered the white whale in the bands history, eyes seem transfixed on him during the accompanying ‘Sugar Coated Sour’, which even in his time away was one of the bands most popular and consistent tracks. More importantly, the chemistry between the members never felt forced despite all hailing from different eras of the bands history. So much of the fandom surrounding Dillinger obviously comes from their latter years, some of these tracks have barely, if at all, been played in the last 20 years. Case in point being ‘Sandbox Magician’ and more so with ‘4th Grade Dropout’, which prior to Dimitri’s return hadn’t been played since 2004, which the singer jokes is “his song, but look at me now” to great cheers from the London crowd. Their final offering from the Running Board EP is ‘Abe The Cop’ before returning 1999’s ‘Weekend Sex Change’ and ‘Variations on a Cocktail Dress’.
The final stretch is an apoplectic yo-yo between the early years of the band. Starting with a call back to the very first release for the band, 1997’s ‘Monticello’ from the self-titled EP, material from which had gone almost entirely untouched for two decades, it feels appropriate to have this track here in their final days as a unit, before returning with ‘Jim Fear’ as the penultimate entry from the Infinity album. Personally, there was something equally special in the band allowing an entry from the Irony is a Dead Scene EP, as an ode to the era of Dillinger with their other other vocalist, one time Mike Patton. The rendition of Aphex Twin’s ‘Come to Daddy’ feels like the final descent into madness. But there could have been no more fitting closer than ‘43% Burnt’. With Weinman vacating the stage entirely, climbing onto the venue’s balcony, still playing the track, before throwing himself back into the crowd. It was absolute bedlam, the sort of glorious mayhem that The Dillinger Escape Plan was known for for years. This feels like the bridge between the chaos they wrought for decades and one final night, and a goodbye to the UK.
