Soulfly at Lille Vega

It’s almost funny how many musical lives Max Cavalera has already lived while the rest of us are still trying to remember the password to our streaming service. Sepultura, Nailbomb, Cavalera Conspiracy, Soulfly — the list goes on, like a metal version of a family group chat you never quite manage to leave. And yet Soulfly has become the longest-running, most stubborn chapter of them all. Maybe because the project has always carried something more than riffs and rage. There’s a spirit in it. A pulse. A berimbau cutting through the drums and distortion like a reminder that metal doesn’t necessarily have to come from the same place every time.

And yes, this is still a family business. On stage, Max is joined by his son Zyon Cavalera, who behind the drums was introduced as “the octopus” this evening — and that’s actually a pretty accurate description. He doesn’t just play. He clings to the songs with eight limbs’ worth of control and chaos. It’s modern thrash, but with a spiritual undertone, as if someone had mixed war drums, inherited trauma and stadium energy into the same pot. It should be messy. It should fall apart. Instead, it still stands razor-sharp nearly 30 years after Soulfly began in 1997.

The night’s support act, Mawiza, did more than just warm things up. They arrived like a small, proud force rising from the earth itself. The band sings in Mapudungun, and right there the room changes character. At first they stood masked, with only vocals and three drummers, and it had an almost ceremonial weight. Then the masks came off, and the sound shifted toward more traditional metal. Then the masks went back on. Then they shifted again. That kind of movement can quickly become gimmickry, but Mawiza kept it grounded in the body. Their frontman also took time to talk about Mapuche history, the imprint of colonisation and the fact that they are still Mapuche. Not as a museum piece. As the present. As resistance.

There was also a sarcastic invitation to fact-check the whole thing on our iPhones, which in its own way was the most modern moment of the evening. A small jab at the digital laziness we all carry around in our pockets. And it worked. Not because it was clever, but because it was real. Mawiza delivered battle cries, weight and a cultural confidence that didn’t ask for permission. As they themselves say: “Kimpayaymi tami ekuwael.” It lingers in the air long after. Maybe that should be printed on more concert tickets and fewer LinkedIn posts.

After a short changeover, Soulfly took the stage, and they didn’t spend a second pretending they were there to improvise their way through the night. They knew exactly what people wanted. And they gave it to them. The opening “Back to the Primitive” from the debut album set the tone immediately: berimbau first, then that heavy nu-metal frame that hits like a dust cloud in the chest. That sound is thicker than an AI-generated apology from a bad boss. It’s rough, direct and in no need of explanation.

From there, things moved fast. Just over an hour, and it never felt like filler. More like constant forward motion, with songs like “Fire” and “Bring It” sliding into one another at a pace that left little room for thought. And maybe that was the point. Soulfly doesn’t breathe to give lectures. They play. They push. They hammer. There was a thrashy energy in the delivery, but also discipline. Not the polished kind. The kind that comes from years on the road and a band that knows the audience hasn’t come for anecdotes about soundchecks and bad coffee.

Lille Vega was the perfect room for it. Not big enough to lose the pressure. Not small enough to feel claustrophobic. And the audience was with them. A dedicated metal crowd that seemed more interested in feeling every riff than in starting a mosh pit just for the sake of the picture. Thank God. There’s something liberating about an audience that actually listens. That doesn’t just want to document the night, but be inside it. That’s rare enough in 2026, where half the concert experience often looks like a battle between stage lights and front cameras.

There wasn’t much talking along the way, and honestly: thank you for that. Max Cavalera briefly said something about the excitement when they played “Favela/Dystopia” from the new album, and that was fine. No more Christmas stories. No more “Copenhagen, how are you tonight?” with that international, slightly weary accent all rock stars eventually get handed. A Deftones cover fit in too, like a small nod to the genre’s shared DNA. And “Jumpdafuckup” arrived without Corey Taylor, but still with the sit-down that Cavalera was once inspired to use by Slipknot. Details like that aren’t just fan service. They’re metal history in motion.

There were a few moments where a slightly odd backing track stuck out like a loose thread in an otherwise tight sweater. But that was minor. As a whole, the concert was so well-oiled, so direct and so full of value that it almost felt unfair to complain. You got the old songs, the new energy and that particular Soulfly feeling that metal can be spiritual without becoming solemn. That’s a difficult balance. They nailed it.

And maybe that’s the most impressive thing about Max Cavalera after all these years: that he can still make a room feel like something more than just a concert. Not a museum. Not a nostalgia exercise. Just a living, sweaty, roaring community with berimbau, drums and a man charismatic enough to make even the hardest metal heads nod along. It’s not subtle. It’s not meant to be. It’s just good. And sometimes that’s enough when Monday needs to be kicked out the door in a cloud of dust from your boots.