COHEED AND CAMBRIA, Fighting With Wire, Birmingham Academy 11/11/12

Fighting With Wire being the support tonight is a real unexpected bonus. The Derry band were the opening act for the Helmet gig back in August, but RTM couldn’t get there in time. They were then meant to be back in June but that show got cancelled because of the England football match with Sweden.

There is a real sense, then – as far as we are concerned at least - third time lucky tonight. Happily, the band do not disappoint. Comparisons with bands such as Joyrider, Therapy? and Wilt might initially seem lazy and based solely on nationality, but not so, it is because that is what FWW actually do sound like, for proof see title track of album number two “Colonel Blood,” new single ”Didn’t Wanna Come Back Home” sounds like the Foo Fighters at their best and mixes superbly with material from their debut “Man Vs Monster” opus. Fighting With Wire didn’t have to work hard to win friends tonight.

Tonight’s Coheed and Cambria show is being billed as a “Special Acoustic and Electric Show." In practice this means the New York Prog Metallers are playing a short acoustic set before they play their main show. The time they spend on stage doing that is not bad and “Pearl Of The Stars” sounds excellent in this setting, while “Wake Up” is turned into a real singalong, but actually, the fact that this bit came around 20 minutes after Fighting With Wire and that there is another break of 20 minutes afterwards gives the evening a bit of a stop-start feel.

When the electric stuff begins, though, it is mind-blowingly good. Main man Claudio Sanchez has – literally – let his hair down for this (it had been tied back during the acoustic portion) and the crowd goes ballistic for opener “No World For Tomorrow.” “Gravemakers and Gunslingers” follows and, with its solo to start, it gives the impression of a song that is bursting to rock.

Sanchez, in particular, is clearly loving things. Shooting the crowd a-la Steve Harris at the end of “Everything Evil” and whilst he falls over after mistiming a jump into Josh Eppard’s drums (dismantling the kit in the process) that is the only thing he does wrong tonight.

New album “The Afterman: The Ascension” is represented with three songs including the title track and “Goodnight Fair Lady” but if there is a quibble a couple more new tracks would have been nice. That said, the second part of the album is due next year, so perhaps they will flesh this part of the careers out a little more?

Such questions are for another day, though, because for 80 minutes Coheed were incredible. These are heady times for the proggy side of metal, and really if Rush were in front of us tonight, they wouldn’t have been better than this. Coheed and Cambria were that good.