At The Voodoo Lounge, August 7th

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Review by Justin Ryan,Dublin,Ireland. A venue with a capacity of around 800 people,the Voodoo Lounge is located approximately one mile from O'Connell Street in Dublin's city centre. Tonight (7th August, 2014), the venue proudly hosted the mighty PRONG, who have just started into a short European tour of headlining shows and festival appearances.The gig this evening will be followed by two more in as many days, one at the Bloodstock Open Air Festival in England tomorrow and another show on Saturday night at the Alcatraz Festival in Belgium. The compact, near sold out venue tonight provided PRONG with an excellent opportunity to drop in on their Irish support and also be match sharp for the much bigger festival crowds that await them this weekend.

At 8:50 pm, the New York trio entered the stage. To a black backdrop bearing the PRONG logo in white, the band tore into "For Dear Life", quickly followed by "Beg To Differ", both off 1990's essential Beg To Differ album. The momemtum building continued with another pair of songs off the one album, this time "Irrelevant Thoughts" and "Unconditional" from Prove You Wrong. Other than a "Good evening, Dublin!", there was little chat from Tommy Victor to the crowd early on in the show. He seemed completely focused on creating and setting an utterly frantic, chaotic vibe early on and any chit-chat would, understandably, have gotten in the way of his intentions. The crowds approval of the songs that were chosen to open the first half an hour of the concert was evidenced by the deafening roars that followed each song in turn. "Eternal Heat" complimented the opening four songs brilliantly. This was followed by another gem, "Lost And Found" from the aforementioned Beg To Differ album.

Just when it seemed that nothing could possibly disrupt the unrelenting sonic juggernaut that was in full force on stage, an unsavoury incident occured close to the front of the stage which stopped the band dead in its tracks. Some misguided idiot in the front row decided he would attempt to relieve bass player Jason Christopher of his instrument. A struggle then ensued whereby the offender retreated back into the packed crowd. Although he couldn't be identified on the spot, he was shortly thereafter ejected by PRONG's security for attemping to cause more trouble. "This isn't the first time we've had to start a song all over again live" was Tommy Victor's comment on what had happened just to his left hand side.

The concert got straight back on track with "Cut Rate", "Rude Awakening" and "Turnover". It really was a trip to behold the razor sharp tightness of the band with their myriad of impressive riffs, tempo changes, thunderous drum and bass work and ripping guitar solos. There's just no slop involved, each song is crafted with brilliant structure to maximise its potential. In full flow (and that's from the word go), PRONG are a massive force live, the satisfied grin on Victor's face suggesting he still enjoys performing live as much as ever.

The twelveth song of the night was "Carved Into Stone" .This was followed by four songs in a row taken from the classic Cleansing album. "Broken Peace", "Another Worldly Device", "Whose Fist..." and "Snap Your Fingers..." were all delivered flawlessly to an ecstatic crowd now indulging in some heavy duty crowd surfing. "I love this place! Fuck yeah, Dublin!" was Victor's tribute to his Irish fans. Following the song "Power Of The Damager", the encore consisted of three songs, two of which were from the album Rude Awakening, namely "Close The Door" and "Dark Signs". "Revenge Best Served Cold" closed the twenty song gig at 10:25 pm, an hour and thirty five minutes from start to finish.