35. Alice In Chains
Alexandra Palace
9 November 2013
Fresh from our soul-melting audience with Mark Lanegan, we embarked on another musical pilgrimage. Only this time, my friend and I strayed far from our safe South London turf, past the moustache twirlers of Shoreditch, through the curated smugness of Hampstead, and into the frozen hellscape of Alexandra Palace.
If you’ve never been to Ally Pally, imagine booking a gig on the top of a hill inside a listed Victorian aircraft hangar with the accessibility of Mordor. I’ve skipped gigs by bands I love purely because they were happening in this cursed postcode. And yet, here we were, innocent, hopeful, and full of the kind of optimism that only ever leads to mild hypothermia and missed night trains.
But back then, we didn’t know better. So, we trudged to this Narnian fortress for an evening of righteous noise, headlined by the mighty Alice in Chains. First, though, we were treated to the curious spectacle of Ghost.
Ghost isn’t a band so much as a travelling Goth-themed Punch & Judy show. The lead singer, dressed like a Satanic bishop halfway through a midlife crisis, serenades the crowd with operatic doom metal, only to break character between songs to chat. Like... small talk. Like the Antichrist asking how your week has been. It was like seeing Freddy Krueger pause to discuss property prices. Absolutely not.
Once the dry ice had cleared, Alice in Chains took the stage, fronted these days by William DuVall, who has the unenviable task of stepping into the boots of the late, legendary Layne Staley. But somehow, he manages it. There’s a touch of Lenny Kravitz about him, if Lenny swapped the silk scarves and funkadelia for black jeans and serious intent. No jetpacks, no glitter, just pure, reverent fire.
He rips through “Dirt”, “We Die Young”, and “Rooster” like a man who knows the weight he’s carrying. Meanwhile, Jerry Cantrell, who still looks like he could beat you in both a guitar duel and a staring contest, lets loose riff after riff like they’ve been fermenting since the ’90s. It’s heavy, heartfelt, and at times so loud you could feel your organs rearranging.
The gig was the sort that justified that trudge-up the accursed hill. Almost.
Because here’s the rub: once the final chords fade and the band disappears into the ether, you’re dumped unceremoniously back into the logistical abyss that is Ally Pally after dark. No trains. No Ubers. Just a sea of fans shuffling toward civilisation. There are no wardrobes here. No Aslans. Just a painfully long walk, a distant Tube station, and a growing resentment for Victorian architecture.
By the time I got home, I could barely remember my name, let alone the encore. But I did remember one thing: never again, Alexandra Palace. Never. Again.