I Prevail w/ Polaris & Gore @ Alexandra Palace, London - 25.09.26
I Prevail create a 10,000-people moshpit at London's Alexandra Palace
It is the scene’s best kept secret that playing Alexandra Palace can make or break a band’s career. It is a room that is difficult to conquer, mainly due to its size, lack of seated areas and history of bands that performed there and then went on to have headline slots in some of the UK’s biggest music festival. Offering the backdrop to host everything from orchestras to raves, to television productions to sporting events, the Ally Pally now was the venue to be on a Friday night. I Prevail’s “The Violent Nature Tour” has already received high praises across media as it started, but the London show was still a highly anticipated event. Having approx. 10,000 people gather to behave like they have collectively forgotten bones can break, the band had the room mostly full early on. And how violent can the room be?
GORE. had the inevitable task of opening the show in the Great Hall. Opening a gig is always a tough task on its own, but GORE. provided the perfect hostage situation, even as the audience was still arriving and the floor hadn’t yet found its rhythm. The setlist was a feast for the ears; starting off with “Wrath” and “Sepsis”, it was clear that the band was not intimidated by the room. Relying on the heaviness of their riffs and the darkness that they invoke through their songs, the sound did all the work to get the crowd running and keep the tension up. Ending the set with “Crucified” and “Babylon”, their set felt more like a statement and less like a gig; they are capable of having a big room engaged and ready to let loose, and they have just gone ahead and proven it.
When Polaris hit the stage, the evening got significantly more serious. Not in the sense that everyone stops having fun, but there was a noticeable shift in scale. The security looked more braced, the room felt more tense, and the strobes felt like ammunition. There was no energy conservation as the band started off strong with “Dissipate” and “Without You”, and the crowdsurfers responded with extra flair. Harnessing modern metalcore with the cleanness and grittiness of heavy music, their set was tight and landed hard, though there was still the human element present throughout. Polaris addressed their audience and engaged with them to participate, which paid off as the set progressed on to “Inhumane” and “Avoid My Head”. They mixed melody, atmosphere and audience craziness into one, making the gig feel more intimate than the enormous room offered. There was constant movement, and by the end of the set with “Nightmare”, the atmosphere had changed from ‘we are waiting for I Prevail to come on stage’ to ‘we actually would like some of Polaris, thank you very much’. Unfortunately for them, the evening had a different headline set.
I Prevail came on stage ready to make their gig everyone else’s problem. Before the band was even on, the security briefing mentioned that things that make a photographer cackle in satisfaction: “lots of pyro”, “expecting lots of surfers”. With that in mind, when I Prevail graced the stage, it was obvious why Ally Pally was the most suitable venue for their set. The lights went down, the guitars echoed and the drums shook the ground; and there was now no virtual barricade between band and audience. The band knew exactly how to make the room feel full, having lots of people wonder if the gig was sold out. There were moshpits for every single song, pyro that was unrelenting in more than half the set, and a production so massive that it added a different layer to the sound of the band.
Operating between clean and brutal vocals with a modern pop metal edge, I Prevail’s setlist combined polished melody with aggression like those two can only go hand in hand. Opening with “N.W.O”, “Bow Down” and “Self-Destruction”, the crowd was bouncing and singing along to every lyric, screaming back every line that came after a clean pass. And yet, the heavier moments gave the band an excuse to lose whatever dignity they had left, and the audience responded to that gladly. The Violent Nature era also represents an interesting point of evolution for the band. The new songs have enough brutality and heaviness to them, but they do not lose their funness and flair as they go. There are melodic moments followed by absolute punishment, and this is a remarkably effective formula to have people have fun. So for songs where the audience knew what to expect, such as “Bad Things” and “Rain”, they knew exactly when to take over and have the band watch them in awe rather than the other way around.
Sneaking in a cheeky metal cover of Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”, the whole area was bouncing by the middle of the set. This was followed by an aggressive drum solo and straight into “GOD”, which made the pyro that heated up the venue feel even more ridiculous. For a moment you could forget this was a metalcore gig; it was a grand and historic spectacle of people having fun and singing unhinged lyrics back to each other, and then throwing themselves into the pit for good measure. Closing off the show with “Come and Get It”, “Hurricane” and “Gasoline”, I Prevail proved that they can pull of the scale of a show and keep the audience engaged throughout without any dips in the set. They had thousands of people moving, singing and voluntarily throwing themselves into moshpits in a deeply stupid way that left a smile on everyone’s face.
So what is the final verdict then? We had 10,000 people accepting violence on a Friday night like it was never a question, a massive production that scorched the venue and three bands that knew how to have everyone off their feet. Was it worth the tinnitus? Maybe. Now it remains to see which festival will announce a headline slot for I Prevail first.
