Motionless In White / Motorpoint Arena / Nottingham

Feb 9

Feb 9 Motionless In White / Motorpoint Arena / Nottingham

As Motionless in White (MiW) vocalist Chris "Motionless" Cerulli said in his intro to the fans, the last time MiW played in Nottingham was to a small crowd of about 400. That was the Rescue Rooms back in January 2016, almost ten years ago to the day. Who there at the time thought they may be seeing them again in an arena in the city? The tone was set, and expectations were high…..

Opening the night are the Australian metalcore band Make Them Suffer. Formed in 2008 in Perth. Initially more of a death/black metal sound, they changed to a more progressive metalcore sound. They have released five albums from 2012’s debut “Neverbloom” to 2024’s self-titled “Make Them Suffer”.

Make The Suffer are Sean Harmanis (vocals), Nick McLernon (guitar), Jaya Jeffery (bass), Jordan Mather (drums) and Alex Reade (keyboards & vocals).

Make Them Suffer took to the stage and blew the Nottingham crowd away with their intense style of metalcore right from the off with the likes of Ghost of Me. No ifs…. No buts…. Full on passion from the stage, which demanded the same back from the crowd, who eagerly obliged, with hands raised, a pit formed and the first surfers came over.

By the time we got to Erase Me late in the set, they were delivering some insanely good music, with brutal breakdowns some insanely good guttural vocals from Sean and barrage after barrage of riffs. Singer Sean Harmanis made the Motorpoint Arena his own, prowling the stage, and his harsh vocals are beautifully countered by the clean vocals from Alex, which add balance and depth to the performance.

An impressive set from a band on the rise and worth keeping an eye on.

Setlist

Ghost of Me

Bones

Mana God

Oscillator

Erase Me

Doomswitch

Next to hit the stage are UK rockers Dayseeker, formed in Orange County, California, in 2012. They have released six studio albums so far from 2013’s debut “What It Means to Be Defeated” to 2025’s “Creature in the Black Night”. Dayseeker are Rory Rodriguez (vocals), Ramone Valerio (bass), Zac Mayfield (drums), Mitch Stark (guitar) and Devin Chance (bass).

Dayseeker brought a distinct change of pace from the intensity of Make Them Suffer. They open with Pale Moonlight and it’s instantly clear that Dayseeker’s sound is more melodic with powerful deep lyrics set against intricate melodies. The change of pace is noticeable in the vocals too, with singer Rory Rodriguez delivering some magnificent clean, crisp vocals which suit the more emotive performance. But he also has the technique and power to deliver some crushing vocal tones, when required.

Shapeshift delivers some mesmerizing sonic soundscapes that drag the listener in, while tracks like Crawl Back to My Coffin were delivered with weight and power.

And what Dayseeker do so well, is intertwine that quiet more intimate sound, which raw power and energy so well, for example in Bloodlust Rory encourages the crowd to form a circle pit, and they deliver some crushing riffs for the crowd to go wild to.

Perhaps the highlight of the set was Without Me an emotional track that saw the entire crowd join in with the lyrics, which was topped by Neon Grave as the final track that took the emotional element through the roof. Written by Rory about his father it was intense and powerful.

Dayseeker deliver, and then some !

Setlist

Pale Moonlight

Shapeshift

Burial Plot

Crawl Back to My Coffin

Bloodlust

Without Me

Crying While You're Dancing

Creature in the Black Night

Sleeptalk

Neon Grave

And now, after a 10 year wait, the wait is finally over, as headliners Motionless in White head to the stage. Formed in 2004 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Motionless in White are

Chris "Motionless" Cerulli (vocals), Ryan Sitkowski (guitar), Ricky "Horror" Olson (guitar), Vinny Mauro (drums) and Justin Morrow (bass).

2010 saw the release of their debut album “Creatures”, followed by “Infamous” (2012), “Reincarnate” (2014), “Graveyard Shift” (2017), “Disguise” (2019) and most recently 2022’s “Scoring the End of the World”.

As the intro track rang in our ears we watched a funky visual on the giant screens of a cat before MiW walked out to huge cheers. The arena went wild as they blasted right into Meltdown which raised the bar and set expectations high. Chris Curelli was on impressive form, and he owned the Nottingham stage. Constantly on the move, interacting with the crowd and smiling throughout pulling the Nottingham faithful into the heart of the performance. His vocals were on point too, moving with ease from melodic clean tones through to guttural growls packed with intensity and raw energy. After the opening track Chris spoke to the crowd and told them how happy they were to be back after ten years, a chant near me in the crowd of “You Sexy Bastard” grew and grew with more and more joining in. Chris asked what they were saying and they chanted again, and he remarked ‘I have no idea what you’re on about but it sounds fun’ lol.

The performance was slick and polished as you’d expect from an arena tour. The lighting rig was impressive, with three large LED panels at the back displaying images of the band playing live interspersed with graphics. Throughout, they’re joined by dancer on stage who used LED poles to create sweeping light trails, fire torches that they spun round creating giant arcs of flames, to compliment the fire cannons on the edge of the stage, and angle grinders, that they used to create fountains of sparks. Visually impressive, the perfect backdrop to the stunning musical performance.

The lights dimmed for new track Afraid of the Dark which got a fantastic reception from the Nottingham crowd. Indeed the crowd deserve special mention. Right from the start, they embraced MiW, chanting, cheering, pits forming spontaneously and a steady stream of surfers towards the stage. And the band seemed to thrive off this energy too.

None more so that in Slaughterhouse that had the crowd screaming. Cyberhex had a futuristic energy about it with synths and guitar tones intertwined it had an eerie feel to it, and during Another Life the crowd again took centre stage so to speak, with a sea of phone lights throughout the auditorium as they sang along to the lyrics. A wonderful powerful and emotional moment.

The set eventually came to an end with Eternally Yours and as you would expect, it was the anthem we all expected. The place was alive, hands and voices raised aloft as the crowd joined in the chorus sections. It was powerful and intense and as it ended flowers were tossed into the crowd as they said their farewells and left the stage. The lights slowly dimmed and the house lights came on to the tune of Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears.

Motionless in White were simply sensational, musically the performance was spot on, the vocals were delivered with power, passion and intensity, and the stage show was simply sublime. The Nottingham crowd lapped up every second of it and revelled in the experience. It may have been a long ten years, but boy was it worth the wait…. A night no one present will ever forget.

Setlist

Meltdown

Sign of Life

A-M-E-R-I-C-A

Thoughts & Prayers

Voices

Afraid of the Dark

Werewolf

Necessary Evil

Disguise

Cyberhex

Rats