Last support band for Fear Factory this evening was Butcher Babies. They’re a name that shows up every once in a while, yet this was still our first encounter with the band, which performed slightly amputated this evening as they were playing without one of their vocalists, Carla Harvey. She was temporarily out for medical reasons.
The rest of the gang was here though, and they were going to do what they could to fill the missing spot.

“I see a lot of familiar faces, and a lot of new knees as well. So if you’re wondering who the fuck we are, we are the Butcher Babies, and we’re here to fuck things up!”
- Heidi Shepherd (vocals)

Coming off of a surprisingly good Ignea show moments earlier (surprising only because I had no idea who they were), the Copenhagen crowd was ready to greet Butcher Babies with open arms, and while we were new to this band, they clearly had a following backing them up in the local audience.
The band took the stage with one hell of an energy and attitude, and they were kicking ass from the start. That they were considered steps above the rest of the support bands was evident in the fact that Blake Bailey got to use Fear Factory’s drumkit for the show, instead of them having their own taking up space. This of course also meant that the band had more space to rock out on, which was used to its fullest, especially so by Shepherd.

“Copenhagen, are you ready to party? Let’s do it then!”
- Shepherd (vocals)

It wasn’t just the band either - the crowd was also fully invested in the show. It didn’t take much convincing when King Pin came on, and Shepherd assigning a floor manager from the audience, to get a huge circle pit going. The ferocity was truly impressive, and it didn’t end with the song either. Well, it may have taken a short break, but the fans were at it as soon as the next song kicked off. In fact, the circle pit kept going for so long, that several songs later, Shepherd decided to go into the crowd herself, and sing from the very middle of it!

Still, with the impressive energy they laid down for us, and with the massive response from the crowd, I’m afraid I can’t say that I was very impressed by what I saw and heard. I mean, this obviously has a crowd, but I’m not part of it. Would it have helped if Harvey was there? Possibly, but I doubt it. The lacking vocal harmonies was not what I was missing here, there was just a general disinterest in the band.
The roller coaster of the evening continued, and my hope at this point was that Fear Factory would manage to bring it home.