I Prevail waited until an unseasonably warm September evening to bring a scorcher of a show to Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse. Paling in size to their Ally Pally show to follow, IP are no strangers to selling Viccy the hell out. This was no exception, though the since 2023, supports have leapfrogged and levelled up exponentially in the shape of US’s upstarts Gore and the Aussie icons in Polaris. The lineup is in aid of latest record Violent Nature, and the title alone suggest a forecast of flying limbs from concert goers this evening.
Gore.
Super quick risers Gore have just planted roots in the UK, but this is already their 3rd stint on these shores since their debut here in June 2025. The fresh face is a welcome sight in a stage this big and they immediately clean out the cobwebs of those just arriving from a Tuesday at work with a set of tracks from their 2025 EP, ‘Wrath’ and ‘Sepsis’. The Texans present a perfectly balanced set of their already budding discography, pun intended. As the band unveil one of this years singles with ‘Lead Me To the Slaughter’ because drawing on some of their oldest material from A Bud That Never Blooms with ‘Doomsday’ and ‘Pray’. They are more than game for the lofty slot, originally slated to open a 4 act bill, the absence of Amira Elfeky means they had even bigger expectations in front of them, which they more than meet with latest single ‘Crucified’ and standout track/closer ‘Babylon’. The pedigree of Gore is immediate, it’s obvious why they secured a place at Download last year, and rave reviews supporting Of Mice & Men in December, but this was a whole different kettle of fish. Stages this size in unfamiliar territory are hard to conquer, Gore more than did that as an opener.
Polaris
Much can be said of Polaris’s history with Manchester, and with that, this very venue, playing special guest to Beartooth in 2024 to much acclaim. They waste extremely little time getting the room going, with vocalist Jamie Hails leading the charge with a stomp that brings the lights up, and then a head like a windmill for opener, ‘Dissipate’. As stated, the Aussies are very familiar with this stage, and as such play with all the acumen of headliners themselves as they barrel through their first single since 2023’s Fatalism, ‘Without You’, as well as ‘Inhumane’ from that very same album. Hails is full of chirps and crowd calls between and during songs and calls for one or two crowd participation moments that they’re not allowed to call for nowadays, but it makes for a white hot crowd for the entirety of their set from 2020’s The Death of Me record. Back to back hammerings of ‘Landmine’, ‘All of This is Fleeting’, ‘Above my Head’ and ‘Hypermania’ feels like a real “for the diehards” moment for those fans who were in attendance for the smattering of shows pre-Covid that Polaris visited the UK for, whereas now they have a certified stronghold of followers here. Finally, and of course most notably, is ‘Nightmare’, as the final and biggest offering from Fatalism. This has always been a highlight of the set since the single released in 2023, and made literal waves at that years Download Festival. All the vigour of the band still shines through, and it feels a matter of time until they’re top billing in this very room.
I Prevail
Headliners all the way from Michigan arrive to a more than palpable atmosphere. Trying to add any additional flare to I Prevail’s set after the sheer intensity of Polaris feels like a bit of a challenge, but if any band can do it…
There’s no easing into this either, as ‘NWO’ immediately throws the room into the deep end, while also kicking things off with their new material, before reviving a track of their absolute peak with 2019’s ‘Bow Down’, complete with a frankly silly amount of pyro. It’s immediately key to see how Jon Eberhard has been welcomed at one of the key voices within the band after lineup changes, with him covering the clean end of ‘Bow Down’ as well as the spoken parts of ‘Self-Destruction’ from TRUE POWER with all the aplomb the crowd can provide. Unsurprisingly, Eric Vanlerberghe is astride a step, centre stage, flipping the crowd off as this happens.
The variety in the early going of this set is delectable, touching again on 2022’s album with ‘There’s Fear in Letting Go’, and their thanks to this is a sizeable pit tearing through the centre of the floor. Vanlerberghe does very little to discourage this, and actually much like Polaris before them, spurs them for activity that nowadays gets the Voldemort treatment, in a Wall of Death to kick off the title track of last years record, Violent Nature. Ever the communicator, he continues the egging on of the crowd as they move into ‘Body Bag’, choosing “Grey Shirt Guy” in the middle to kick off a circle pit. Grey Shirt Guy had no idea he had become a main character, and maybe that’s on I Prevail for trying to distinguish by picking any shirt on a black to grey scale at a metal show. Crowd surfers begin making regular trips towards the barrier, to the absolute delight of the band. Security however are somewhat having kittens due the the ferocity of those coming over the barrier, and the every present and quite fiery stage show. If anything is certain though, I Prevail levelling up the the production of the set vs last time out in this same room, certainly begs the question of how long until they crack the arenas.
Now in the lead up to the tour, some concern arose when Amira Elfeky dropped off the supports, given the certainty that next track ‘Paradise’ was bound to feature in the set. Concerns are immediately lifted when the band welcome on Hayley Roughton back onto the stage after Gore’s opening set. Roughton already showed some chops in the clean end of her vocals during Gore, but taking ‘Paradise’ and running it in her own style really shows of her range, as well as the band themselves using ‘Into Hell’ immediately after to further cement some of the newer material as the norm going forward. The remainder of the set blisters by, with ‘Bad Things’ bringing the TRUE POWER era back into focus, as well as the lingering of a raved-about Metallica cover in ‘Sad But True’ which made headlines with its first showing in Leeds. ‘Rain’ is perhaps the most poignant part of the evening given how stylistically different it is to the rest of the setlist, again, a testament to how I Prevail’s material has matured with them over their tenure and changes throughout the years, while ‘God’, also from the most recent record, is apocalyptically heavy, and makes the penultimate track of the set, 2022’s ‘Choke’ seem tame by comparison.
“Final song” honours kickstart the time machine, with Vanlerberghe introducing 2016’s ‘Come and Get It’, as the sole offering of the Lifelines era from the evening. Again, this shows the test of time the band how been through in that they have next to no need to rely on the older material that brought them to the dance. There is an equally amount of flex involved in the fact they simply forgo the “off stage/on stage” dynamic of the encore, and instead just barrel through the lights off moment to give us the final two songs of the night, both from 2019’s TRAUMA, with ‘Hurricane’ and the aptly titled ‘Gasoline’ given how it sets the room ablaze to send everyone off to the trams.
It was hinted at previously in this same review, but just how long is it until this show finds its way to an arena. For the sake of discussion, I Prevail are on a similar trajectory to Parkway Drive’s 2019. There’s an almighty stage show in place, there’s high ranking slots at Download begging for I Prevail’s name on them (though they are overdue a return), and they’re handily selling out the biggest non-arena venues in Manchester each time they pop by. The image is one of a band that can do little more to prove themselves, given the leap frog bands like Spiritbox and Sleep Token have had straight into out Co-op Live. Surely it’s a matter of time until we see I Prevail joining things at the top level in the North? They certainly deserve it after this set.
