ERRA ‘Cured’ New York City’s Irving Plaza With An Exhilarating Performance

ERRA has been on an unstoppable roller coaster this year. Since April, the band has been touring across the US in support of their latest album, Cure and almost every single date was either sold out, or at near full capacity. On INSERT DATE, the band wrapped up its almost fully sold out tour at the iconic Irving Plaza in New York City with Make Them Suffer, Void Of Vision and Novelists.

Getting the crowd warmed up first on this Sunday evening was the French progressive metalcore outfit, Novelists. Novelists was formed in 2013 and is made up of brothers Florestan Durand (guitar) and Amael Durand (drums), followed by Pierre Danel (guitar) Nicolas Delestrade (bass) and Camille Contreras (vocals). The band established its identity with its combination of metalcore with progressive metal style guitar riffs and its primary use of clean singing rather than screams. Since Contreras joined the band last fall, the band has released a total of four singles with her so far. Those are “Turn It Up (Keyboard Warriors Social Club)”, “Prisoner”, “Mourning The Dawn”, and the recently released “Okapi”. The music video for “Okapi” which is a special Live + Gospel version of the song, has reached over 54,000 views on YouTube.

Novelists played only six songs but in that short amount of time, the band got the crowd warmed up and ready for the rest of the night. Novelists played “Lost Cause”, “Smoke Signals”, and “Terrorist” which are off of their 2022 studio album, Déjà Vu and the three singles they have released with Contreras since acquiring her back in September of 2023. Contreras showed phenomenal vocal skills which ranged from harsh screams to a beautiful singing voice. This was her first time ever in the US since joining Novelists and she quickly won the American fans over with her ability to sing the band’s previous material and putting her own spin on it while also showcasing what she can do on her own work she has done with the band. Both Durand and Danel had incredible stage energy and played eye catching guitar solos on multiple songs like “Smoke Signals” and “Turn It Up (Keyboard Warriors Social Club)”. Danel was also spinning his guitar and jumping around, getting that adrenaline out and hyping the crowd up. Camille was having a great time on stage and wasn’t afraid to let loose as she was dancing on stage when she wasn’t singing. During the first song, “Lost Cause” she found a dime and a penny on the riser and kindly handed them to the other photographer, named Emily. It was a funny and wholesome moment. The crowd responded very well to the band as they were crowd surfing and singing along to the songs they knew. The pit went absolutely wild for them, especially on the last song “Turn It Up (Keyboard Warriors Social Club)” with its crushing breakdown at the end that closed their set with a massive bang. Camille left a great first impression on the band's American fans and Novelists succeeded in getting the crowd ready for the rest of the night.

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Next up was the metalcore quartet Void Of Visions, hailing from Melbourne, Australian and made up of Jack Bergin (vocals), James McKendrick (guitar), Mitch Fairlie (guitar) and George Pfaendner (drums). Void Of Visions has been a band for ten years now, having formed in 2013 and are currently signed to the Australian label UNFD, which the band has released their three studio albums; Children of Chrome, Hyperdaze, and Chronicles under. On April 19th, the band released their latest single “Empty” which currently sits at #1 on Spotify with over 240,000 streams.

Right off the bat, Bergin got up on the stage’s riser and immediately told the crowd to open the pit up and got right into their first song which was the recently released new single “Empty”. The pit went absolutely crazy on the heavy breakdown at the end of the next song, “The Lonely People”. Bergen called for more crowd surfing which the crowd delivered on the next song “HELL HELL HELL” and they were also starting to two-step. The band played a variety of songs that stemmed from the CHRONICLES album and also brought out two old songs; “Ghost in the Machine” from their 2017 EP Disturbia and “Year Of The Rat” from their 2019 album Hyperdaze. Void of Vision was on a mission to give New York a show they won't forget. The last time they played New York was only 8 months ago, in October supporting Invent, Animate on their Heavener Tour in Brooklyn and the band experienced technical difficulties that not only delayed their set, but forced them to cut it super short. While they didn’t address this directly, they definitely had the intention of making it up to the New York crowd and ensuring that nothing like that would happen again. Bergin was a very interactive frontman, commanding the crowd to do his bidding whatever that may have been, whether it was opening the pit, crowd surfing or signing along, the fans obeyed every single command he made. He wasn’t even afraid to call out the crowd if they weren’t delivering and would demand they pick it up. Bergin’s aggressive screams complimented by McKendrick’s cleans and had the crowd singing along to every chorus and Pfaendner was hammering away at the drums. Towards the end of the last song “INTO THE DARK”, Bergin got up to the barricade and told everyone to come to him and on the song’s final stretch, he jumped right into the crowd and sang the rest of the song while crowd surfing. The pit went crazy one last time and Bergin was brought back on stage as soon as the song, and their set, ended.

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Following Void Of Visions was another Australian metalcore powerhouse called Make Them Suffer. Unlike Void Of Visions however, Make Them Suffer is from Perth, Australian and have been around a little longer; having formed in 2008. Initially, the band started out as a deathcore band but then eventually transitioned into a more progressive metalcore style that would establish the identity the band has today. The band has gone through multiple lineup changes but currently consist of Sean Harmanis (vocals), Nick McLernon (guitars), Jaya Jeffery (bass), Alex Reade (keyboards/vocals), and Jordan Mather (drums) and are currently signed to SharpTone Records and have four studio albums out. Their most recent single, “Epitaph” was released on April 9th and is the second single they released since signing with SharpTone, following the release of “Ghost of Me” in May of last year.

Make Them Suffer was, by far, the rowdiest set of the night. Right off the bat, fans started to crowd surf and they were surfing in massive waves. It got so overwhelming that security had to call for an extra hand to come and help keep up with catching all of them. Everyone in the band did not stand still with both McLernon and Jeffrey throwing kicks in the air and spinning their instruments around and Reade was headbaning when she wasn’t going at it on the keyboards. McLernon’s stage presence specifically was through the roof. For the band’s whole performance, he barely stood still and was either spinning around, making weird moves or pointing his guitar at the crowd — all while playing it at the same time and was nailing those crushing riffs. The crowd radiated off that energy and matched it in the pit. Hermanis took center stage when the band got on and screamed the opening line to “Ghost of Me” with the crowd “SEE YOU WHEN YOU HIT THE BOTTOM” and chaos ran rampant immediately after. The band’s set consisted of all of the songs they have released since Reade joined the band which were “Doomswitch”, “Ghost of Me”, and Epitaph”. Other songs included the 2019 standalone single “Hollowed Heart” and “Ether” which was off the 2016 compilation album Old Souls & Lords Of Woe which combined their 2015 album, Old Souls and a remastered version of their Lords of Woe EP. The band also visited their 2020 album How To Survive A Funeral and brought out “Bones”, “ Soul Decay” and the fan-favorite “Erase Me”.

When it comes to Make Them Suffer, crowd participation is mandatory and Hermanis didn’t care if you were seeing them for the first time, or if you were supporting Make Them Suffer for the last 15 years, he was there to make sure you participated. Hermanis called for the crowd to wave their hands during “Ether” while Reade was holding it down on the clean singing and on “Erase Me”, he ordered everyone to grab the person next to them and push them into a circle, forming a massive circle pit for the song. Reade displayed amazing cleans that paired perfectly with Hermanis’ insanely powerful screams but her vocals truly shined on their recently released single “Epitaph”, which sees her taking the charge on its catchy melodic chorus. Not that they were slowing down to begin with, but the fans continued to crowd surf and they barely slowed down. In fact, it picked up once again on the band’s last song “Doomswitch” because Hermanis commanded the crowd to crowd surf all the way to the front and to give him a high five. From the beginning of the song to the end, the fans did what they were told and crowd surfed all the way to the front, Hermanis high fived as many as he could but it was even too much for him to keep up. Towards the end, Reade brought out her keytar and played a solo on it while Mclernon backed it up with his heavily distorted but intricate guitar riffs that made the pit go crazy for. Hermanis then let out one last scream, ending their set with a bang.

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Now it was time for the one and only, ERRA. ERRA has slowly climbed up to the top to become one of the most innovative progressive metalcore bands today since forming in 2009. Hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, the band’s lineup consists of JT Cavey (vocals), Jesse Cash (guitar/vocals), Clint Tustin (guitar), Conor Hesse (bass), and Alex Ballew (drums) and are also signed to UNFD. ERRA has been touring behind their recently released sixth studio album Cure which was released on April 5th and New York City was the final stop on this successful tour.

ERRA have always found ways to take their shows to the next level and they deliver every time. Everything from the lighting setup, to their sound and their performance was perfect in every way possible. Cavey’s screams and Cash’s cleans are the perfect combination and compliment each other very nicely. Cash and Tustin are an excellent guitar duo as each can play amazing guitar solos while one compliments the other with skillful riffs. Of course no band is perfect without its rhythm section and Hesse and Ballew excelled at making sure the rhythms backed up and completed the whole performance. ERRA kicked it off with the new album's title track “Cure” and the fans were already crowd surfing once the first note hit. The fans joined Cavey in screaming the song’s pre-breakdown line, screaming along with him “Longing for a wish or a cure, a failsafe!” and jumping right into the closing breakdown that caused the pit to unleash chaos. “Cure”’s breakdown is heavy enough on its own, but Hesse’s bass is what really gave it that extra punch it needed live. It was so heavy that I felt it in my chest. On the next song “Gungrave”, taken from their 2021 self-titled album, it was either a member of their team or someone from the other bands, came on stage wearing a towel over their head and another wrapped around their waist and was walking around like a zombie from left to right on stage. I wasn’t sure if that was part of the show or a prank played on the band because the tour was wrapping up but either way it was hilarious.

Despite the tour being called the ‘Cure’ North American Tour, the band played songs that nearly stretched their entire catalog. The band did play a total of seven songs off of Cure; those songs being the title track “Cure”, followed by “Crawl Backwards Out of Heaven”, “Slow Sour Bleed”, “Wish”, “Glimpse”, “Pale Iris” and “Blue Reverie”, but they also touched on songs off of their previous albums, ERRA, Drift, Augment, and Impulse and even brought out the 2019 standalone single “Eye of God”. Whether you were an old school fan or you started following them more recently, there was something for everyone on their set. Cavey called for more crowd surfing on “Crawl Backwards Out of Heaven” and Cash spun his guitar around multiple times. Cash would often play with the crowd and bark into his microphone which prompted the audience to bark back at him. Cash called for some ignorance in the pit during “Snow Sour Bleed” and New York, doing what it does best, got as ignorant as they could on the song’s breakdown and the whole room spun in a circle during “Eye of God”. The audience kept crowd surfing and were singing their hearts out on “Blue Reverie” and “Pale Iris” which are two of the most popular singles off of Cure. The lighting production ERRA had on this tour was unlike any I’ve seen before. It would often switch from flashing lights to very color ones and even had strobe lights going off every now and then. The color lights mimicked the songs themes like it did on “Blue Reverie” where the whole stage was a dark blue for the whole song and a deep red whenever there was a breakdown.

ERRA had a special treat for everyone that had been listening to them since 2011 and brought out two old songs. The first song was “White Noise”, from their first album Impulse which was released in 2011 and “Dementia”, taken from their second album Augment which was released in 2013. Cavey questioned if there were any old school fans in attendance, mentioning the fact that the band has been playing New York for a long time, long before JT even joined the band, and when he mentioned the album Impulse, all of Irving Plaza had an idea of what they were about to get. Cash took charge for a good portion of the song and the fans followed along with him as they were screaming back out every word he sang while Cavey held his part down perfectly, doing his predecessor Garrison Lee justice. “Dementia” is a fan-favorite and is known for Cash’s innovative and lengthy guitar solo that he plays in the middle of the song and is also known for its closing chants that Casey held his mic out to the crowd for them to chant back. While Cash was playing his guitar solo, the pit broke out into a rowing pit where everyone would get on the floor and row their arms back and forth like they were rowing a boat. Those that weren’t rowing were just simply observing Cash as he played this beautiful guitar solo that was helping set the mood. Behind him, the lights were changing from blue to green to magenta and looked like shooting stars moving in an upward direction. I don’t know but something about it just added to Cash’s solo and made it a unique experience.

ERRA concluded their set with “Snowblood” and in the encore, “Skyline”. During “Snowblood” Cavey grabbed a GoPro stick from a crowd surfer and held it out to film the pit when the breakdown dropped. The band took a group picture with the crowd after and the crowd broke out into an “OLE!” chant right after. The crowd gave the band every last bit of energy they had left and continued to crowd surf, mosh recklessly and they even sang Cash’s parts louder than he did on “Skyline”. With multiple sold out shows and many with low ticket warnings, the ‘Cure’ North American Tour was hands down, the most successful tour that ERRA has done yet. With a stacked lineup, an insane lighting production, an incredible live sound and extremely energetic performance, ERRA had New York in awe and wanted them to come back for more, which will definitely happen in the future and I can’t wait to see how they one-up this level of intensity the next time they come around.

Listen to/Purchase Cure here.