I PREVAIL TURN VICTORIA WAREHOUSE INTO A HUMAN MEAT GRINDER
O2 Victoria Warehouse – 22nd September 2026
WORDS / IMAGES LUKE STOREY
There are some gigs where you arrive, watch the band, take a few photographs and go home.
Then there are nights like this.
By the time I Prevail finally hit the stage at Manchester's Victoria Warehouse, I'd already seen enough bodies flying around the room to know that this wasn't going to be one of those evenings where everyone politely stands in their allocated two-foot square and nods along.
This was going to hurt.
And frankly, that's exactly why we were here.
The Victoria Warehouse is one of those venues that seems to understand rock 'n' roll without anybody having to explain it. It's all exposed brick, industrial gloom and enough atmosphere to make you feel like you've wandered into an abandoned factory where somebody has accidentally booked a metalcore festival.
Tonight it was the perfect chamber for I Prevail's particular brand of beautiful violence.
Before the headliners even appeared, Manchester had already been given two very good reasons to start throwing itself around.
Texas metalcore outfit Gore opened proceedings, and vocalist Haley Roughton immediately announced herself as somebody worth keeping an eye on. Her ability to switch between melodic vocals and full-throttle screams is seriously impressive, and the band brought an energy that was completely disproportionate to their position on the bill.
The pits started almost immediately.
The room wasn't even full.
That's when you know you're dealing with the right crowd.
Gore have something of that early Spiritbox atmosphere about them — melody wrapped around something much darker and considerably heavier — and if they continue along this trajectory, I wouldn't be surprised to see them climbing bills rather quickly.
Then came Polaris.
And this is where things started getting stupid.
Technically, they were the second support act.
Somebody should probably have told the audience.
The number of Polaris shirts in the building suggested that a sizeable chunk of Manchester had bought tickets specifically to see the Australians, and the reaction when they opened with Dissipate confirmed it.
Eight songs.
No messing about.
Just eight slabs of Australian metalcore violence delivered to a crowd that appeared to have collectively forgotten it was a Tuesday night.
By now the Victoria Warehouse was warming up nicely.
Then the lights went down.
I Prevail were coming.
And Manchester was ready.
I've somehow managed to go all these years without seeing I Prevail live, which, considering how long the band have been knocking around and the size of their following, seems like a fairly serious oversight on my part. After tonight, I'm wondering how the hell I managed it. Because if I Prevail didn't already realise just how big they are on these shores, they certainly do now.
The Victoria Warehouse was absolutely rammed, and from the second the band hit the stage it became apparent that this wasn't going to be a polite little introduction to Manchester. This was a full-contact experience.
The band are here off the back of Violent Nature, and there is absolutely nothing subtle about the way they're presenting it. Pyro. Lots and lots of pyro. Every time the crowd looked like they might possibly be getting comfortable, another wall of flame erupted from the stage. If you were already sweating from being wedged into a few thousand other human beings, those flames weren't exactly helping.
But nobody was complaining.
Well, not unless they were on fire.
The departure of clean vocalist Brian Burkheiser in 2025 could have left a fairly sizeable hole in the band's sound, but co-vocalist Eric Vanlerberghe has stepped into the breach and, quite frankly, smashed the door off its hinges. He's handling both the clean vocals and the harsh stuff tonight, switching between melody and absolute throat-shredding brutality without making either feel like the lesser role.
And that is one of the things I Prevail do particularly well. They understand that heaviness doesn't mean you have to sacrifice melody. One minute you're getting punched in the face by a scream, the next there's a huge melodic chorus coming over the top and the entire room is singing it back.
Tonight's setlist is stacked with a mixture of new material and the songs that have built the band's reputation, and when Violent Nature arrives, it's immediately obvious that the new material has already found its place. The chorus comes crashing down and thousands of voices join in. Not quietly. Not politely. Everyone is absolutely fucking belting it out.
There are songs that sound good on an album and there are songs that suddenly make sense when you're standing in a room full of people screaming them back at the band. This is the latter.
Then comes Paradise, another new track, and Haley Roughton from Gore returns to the stage to join Vanlerberghe on the melodic vocals. It's a great moment, and a nice payoff after Gore's opening set. For a band still relatively early in their journey, Gore had already made an impression tonight, and seeing Roughton back on that stage in front of this crowd felt like another little glimpse of where this whole metalcore machine could be heading.
Then things get stupid again.
I Prevail launch into their cover of Metallica's Sad But True and the warehouse erupts. It's huge. Heavy. And about as subtle as a brick through a window.
But the real curveball is still to come.
Blank Space.
Taylor Swift.
Yes, Taylor Swift.
I've spent enough years going to gigs to know that live music can occasionally produce moments that make absolutely no sense on paper but work brilliantly in the room. This is one of them.
I Prevail turn Blank Space into a metalcore battering ram and suddenly the Victoria Warehouse is full of people moshing to Taylor Swift. And you know what?
It's fucking brilliant.
Who knew that Taylor Swift could soundtrack a circle pit? Actually, judging by tonight, quite a lot of people.
By now the pits are completely out of control. Circle pits are opening up, bodies are bouncing everywhere and the whole floor has become one enormous human washing machine.
I went into the pit with a fellow photographer. I lost him. I genuinely have no idea where he went. At some point I just accepted that I'd probably see him again after the show.
Maybe.
This is the kind of gig where you can lose somebody standing six feet away from you.
The crowd are absolutely relentless, but there is also that strange camaraderie that exists at the best heavy shows. People crash into each other, fall over, get hauled back up and then immediately go back into the madness.
It's violent without being malicious. Chaotic without being completely stupid. And, most importantly, everybody is having the time of their lives.
I Prevail know exactly how to build a show, too. The set moves between the brutal and the melodic without ever allowing the energy to drop, while the lighting and pyro keep turning the warehouse into something resembling a particularly angry industrial furnace.
By the time we reach the final stretch, everyone is soaked in sweat and probably several degrees hotter than is medically advisable.
Then come the big ones.
Come and Get It hits and the place erupts all over again.
And then Gasoline.
Of course it is.
The final track is the perfect way to bring this particular brand of insanity crashing to an end. One last explosion of screams, guitars, bodies and noise before the lights come back up and reality reluctantly returns.
I walk out of the Victoria Warehouse absolutely knackered.
And grinning.
I've seen a hell of a lot of live bands over the years, across just about every corner of rock music, but nights like this are a reminder of why heavy music continues to thrive.
The metalcore scene understands something that a lot of other genres sometimes forget.
A live show isn't supposed to be tidy. It isn't supposed to be comfortable. It's supposed to make you feel something.
Tonight I Prevail made Manchester feel everything.
Gore started the evening with the spark. Polaris threw the petrol on it. I Prevail arrived with the flamethrower.
The result was two hours of sweat, screams, pyro, melody, mosh pits, circle pits, Taylor Swift and enough testosterone to power the National Grid.
If I Prevail hadn't realised how big they are in the UK before tonight, I suspect Manchester has now made the situation fairly fucking clear.
And somewhere in that pit, I'm still looking for my photographer.
Metalcore doesn't just have some of the best live shows in music. Tonight, it reminded us exactly why.
SETLIST
Bow Down
Self-Destruction
There's Fear in Letting Go
Violent Nature
Body Bag
Paradise (Live debut)
Into Hell
Bad Things
Blank Space (Taylor Swift cover)
Sad but True (Metallica cover)
Rain
Drum Solo
God
Choke
Come and Get It
Hurricane
Gasoline
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