Concerts I've seen

I wasn't able to get to the venue in time to catch Pythia, and only just made it in time for Tarja's set. Other than a single track, I hadn't heard her solo album, and wasn't entirely sure what sort of show this would be. There was a high chance it would be full of ballads, but having read that she'd be playing some Nightwish material, I decided risk it. Somewhat to my surprise, the set was generally much more rock oriented that I'd expected. As expected, there were still more that enough mostly dull ballads as well. But not so many that it significantly detracted from the show. Perhaps in an attempt to give her some credibility as a solo artists, she'd surrounded herself with a fairly stellar range of musicians, such as Max Lilja, formerly of Apocalyptica, and Mike Terrana, formerly of, well, pretty much every German power metal band in existance! Needless to say, the Nightwish tracks were by far the most popular with the audience. She played "Phantom of the opera", but although her brother Tony has a good voice, he's just not Marco Hietala. Also seen tonight were an excellent version of "The snowman", and a somewhat out of place cover of Alice Cooper's "Poison". But the biggest cheer of the night was reserved for "Nemo", the only original Nightwish composition that we saw tonight. A better show than I was expecting, then, but not an outstanding one.

I hadn't heard of The Vision Bleak before this show, so I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. A good performance all round. They were hard to categorise, but I'd say they played dark melodic metal, that reminded me of the sound track to a horror film. Indeed, on the strength of their performance, I bought a couple of their CDs, and in the liner notes, they describe their own music as "horror metal". Definitely a band to watch out for in the future.

One of the reasons I was particularly looking forward to this show was Sirenia as the main support. However, they parted company with their new vocalist a month or so beforehand, and so had pulled out of the tour. To compensate, Therion said they'd be playing a 3 hour set, including the whole of the "Theli" album. Much as I like Therion, I wasn't entirely sure they'd be able to sustain my interest for a full 3 hours. As it turned out, I needn't have worried. They put on an outstanding performance from start to finish. "The rise of Sodom and Gomorrah" was an inspired opener, and as promised, we were treated to the full European stage show. That included girls in horned headdresses chained to posts at the side of the stage, Snowy Shaw being put in headstocks, a belly dancer, and keyboard player Ferdy Doernberg being given a full church organ mockup. We also saw a guest appearance by Messiah Marcolin from Candlemass on a couple of tracks.

The night really got going part way through the first set, with an acoustic Lemuria, featuring not only the two regular guitarists, but also Shaw and Doernberg. They followed that up with "Via nocturna", "An arrow from the sun", "Typhon" and "Ginnungagap", all of which were superlative. After a short break, they returned to play the "Theli" album, which was perhaps the weakest part of the set, but still worth watching. I'd thought they'd struggle a bit without Mats Levén on vocals, but Thomas Vikström makes an admirable replacement, particularly in partnership with Snowy Shaw.

For the encore, we were treated to all 13 minutes of "Adulruna rediviva" from their latest album "Gothic kabbalah", and then a second encore saw Messiah Marcolin return for a cover of King Diamond's "Black funeral", and then a set closing cover of ABBA's "Summernight city". An absolutely amazing show, that made me rethink my ranking of Heaven And Hell as the best show I've seen this year. After this performance, there's no way on earth you could keep me away from Therion's next UK show.

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Disarm kicked off the evening with a pretty decent set of sleazy glam rock, with a punky feel. Not what I'd been expecting, but I was pleasantly surprised. Besides, anyone that introduces a song with the words "this ones about when your girlfriend turns into a zombie and cutting her head off" can't be all bad! I'd heard of Jack Viper before, so I had some idea of what to expect. Sure enough, they played late '80s glam rock, as if the '90s had never happened (which is no bad thing in my book). But somehow they just lacked the energy of the previous band, and while I thought they were OK, they suffered in comparison. Rise To Addiction where the primary reason I was at this show. I've seen them several times before, and they've yet to let me down. Tonight was no exception. Once again, the songs were delivered with a level of professionalism that is rare to see these days. Following what's become their now familiar set opener "Cold season", I was pleased to see "The hive" enter the set list. After an all too brief set, they ended with the equally traditional "Falling as one". I hadn't heard anything by Warrior Soul for probably 15 years before this show. They'd never really interested me much back in the day, but I thought they might have improved since then. Sadly not. They opened with "We are the government", one of the few of their songs that I recognised. But even that familiarity didn't help. It wasn't as if they did anything particularly wrong. But the songwriting seemed bland, and the performance was pedestrian, and lacking in anything to excite or captivate. The rest of the audience seemed to like it, but they just weren't doing anything for me.

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The evening kicked off with the curious spelling that is Dyonisis. Two ethereal vocalists over atmospheric ambient goth. A subdued start to the evening, but one I found myself rather enjoying. There's nothing there to stand out from the crowd, but it's pleasant enough nonetheless. I knew nothing of Lahannya before the show, but spotted Belle on drums and Chris Milden on guitar, so there's certainly some pedigree there. She has a fine voice, although it was drowned out somewhat by Belle's drums, but I think was probably let down a bit in the songwriting department. Each new track kept threatening to do something interesting, but never quite managed to break through. Perhaps it's just not my thing, but it was all a bit uninspiring. Emilie Autumn, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. I'd only found out about her through a chance clicking on a random link on the net a few weeks earlier, but was intrigued enough by what I found to come to the show. I'm glad I did. She had 3 assistants on stage to add theatrical presence and occasional backing vocals. She played some violin only material from her "Laced unlaced" album, but the highlights for me were "Dead is the new alive" and "Liar", both of which were significantly heavier live than on CD. A great chance discovery, then, and I'll see her again next time she plays in London.

I was very unimpressed when I read that the support for tonight's show would be Papa Roach. They seemed completely out of place for a Mötley Crüe show. But as it turned out, they were really quite respectable, with the singer saying that the rapping on their earlier output was because it was necessary at the time, but all he'd really ever wanted to do was play rock 'n' roll. That was reflected in their set this evening, with only a tiny hint of rapping. A definite improvement over what I was expecting. The last time I'd seen Mötley Crüe, they'd put on one of the best shows I've ever seen by any band. No small feat, and I was wondering if they'd be able to repeat it tonight. Something wasn't quite right for the opener "Dr. Feelgood", though. We were pretty far back, but still, it didn't look like Tommy Lee behind the drumkit. It turned out he'd hurt his shoulder, and so Will Hunt from Tommy's solo band was standing in for him, and doing a fine job of it, too. Tommy was still there, and able to play the piano during "Home sweet home", and he occasionally came out and chatted to the audience. There were pyrotechnics aplenty, as the band rattled through a set list of classics. Vince's voice was worse than ever, but even his painful slurring of the lyrics wasn't enough to detract from another stong showing. The set was cut short, presumably due to Will not having enough time to learn all the songs, having been drafted in at the last minute, but it was a bit disappointing not to get an encore, nor even for the band to come out and say goodbye. None of the audience, nor even the stage crew were sure if the night was over or if the band was coming back out again. It turned out they weren't. But either way, another strong performance from the Crüe.

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I have photos of both Kachana and Thunderbolt, so I clearly saw them, but I have no recollection of doing so, and can't give them a meaningful score or review. I'd been impressed with Sabaton supporting Therion earlier in the year, so I wasn't going to pass up the chance to see them at a headline show. They didn't disappoint. The turnout was reasonable, the band were on form and it was clear that they were destined for bigger and better things.

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After the Within Temptation gig at The Astoria, we headed off to The Intrepid Fox for a few drinks, and then on to the 12 Bar Club, where Chris from NFD was DJing. Somewhat surprisingly, the headlining band for the evening, River Freshney, were still playing. Sadly, they were nothing to write home about. Barking vocals on top of average sounding music. Apparently, one of the earlier bands on the bill, Thirteen 66, were much better, but they'd already been and gone by the time we arrived.

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Damone opened procedings, with a fairly mundane set. Their lead vocalist needs to learn how to sing into the microphone. She hasn't got a particularly strong voice to start with, so when she sings off to the side of the mic, her voice rapidly fades until it's essentially inaudible. Combine that with poor mixing, which left her being drowned out by the lead guitar, and it didn't make for a great experience. Musically, there was little wrong with them. But it just didn't work tonight. The last time I'd seen Backyard Babies, they had come across as utterly wild eyed crazy. Tonight, though, they were much more subdued, and although they were very professional and came across as accomplished musicians, I think that they were missing some of their previous insanity, and it all seemed a bit tame in comparison. I still enjoyed their set. But they were certainly better last time. Similarly, Buckcherry seemed a bit too tame. Joshua Todd is a very good frontman, and ideal for the band. But it all just seemed a bit too polished for me, None of the three bands were bad, or even put on a bad set. But nor did any of them live up to my pre-show expectations.

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