CRADLE OF FILTH

May has been a incredibly busy month for metal in Vancouver as we were presented with more big metal shows in this month than over the last 2 years.   But I for one, am excited that the Legendary black metallers have travelled to the Rickshaw Theatre (with support from Frayle)  in Vancouver supporting their latest album called ‘Existence is Futile”.

This is one of those bands that have usually have a very well stocked merch table and I was not disappointed as my wife (who is a hardcore Cradle fan) bought a few T-shirts and an autographed album.  I am also seeing more and more autographed merch from bands and I usually lean towards that type of merch myself.   They also had their infamous ‘Jesus is a cunt’ T-shirts there on hand which is likely a remarkable seller for them over the years.

But enough about that!  Lets talk about the show.

The band has had some lineup changes since we last saw them back in 2016 with Donny Burbage on guitar and Zoe Marie Federoff on keyboards for 2022.  The rest of the band is Daniel Firth (bass), Marek Smerda (guitars), Martin Skaroupka (Drums) and of course the centerpiece of the band being vocalist Dani Filth.

We got shouts of “Dani, Dani.Dani” ringout from the crowd this night before they hit the stage as everyone is eager to hear what Dani starts off with tonight.  That being from the new album ‘Existential Terror’ which they gave us 5 songs off of the new one tonight night.

I see classic Dani this night though, no disappointments with his makeup or attire suitin for this type of music.  Holding his mic in the air with 2 hands and delivering his piercing vocals which no one else sounds like which makes him quite unique in that regard.   Dani is now 48, it would be interesting how many years he has left in him but I have said this before about King Diamond as well who now is 66 years young.

The stage is abit of an odd setup with the drummer being on the right side of the stage albeit it was a large kit surrounded in plexi glass.  Zoe was tucked in the opposite back corner, but she did an amazing job of backup vocals to Dani as heard on song 6 with most accessible song they play ‘Nymphetamine’.   He does have a knack for picking talented backing vocalists over the years. Also I have to mention it was EXTREMELY dark and foggy during this show, which most black metal bands do but this one seemed over the top at times of hardly seeing the band from afar.

They played the song that is likely their marquee, “Her Ghost in the Fog” on the last song of the night (song 13) which is my favorite performance of the evening.  Overall it was a solid performance.  The new album is pretty killer!  Checkout ‘Existence is Futile’