Amorphis

How to start the next Amorphis Survivor?

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Onhell said:
As stated in the now watching thread, I saw them in concert last Saturday. It was a frustrating experience. Not the worst concert I've gone to, but not pleasant. First off I felt bamboozled, because there was an openning act. Nowhere online or on the ticket did they mention there would be one. This is my third concert in Mexico, although not at this venue, and neither Epica or Therion had openning acts. All I thought was, "Great, I'm going to be here later than anticipated." I wake up at 430am every day to go to work and usually in bed by 930pm. When the openning band hit the stage at 815, I knew it would be a long night.

The openning act was actually pretty good. It was a Mexican power metal band whose name i didn't catch. The lead singer sang like any other power metal singer who thinks he's Michael Kiske or Timmo Kotipelto and did a damn good job of it. They had a growler who was useless. the growls didn't really add to the songs and he only growled maybe three times and not for long. It made it even clearer how good Mikael Akenfeldt and Tomi Joutsen actually are since they can sing AND growl. I know there are a few others, but they're the ones I listen to the most.

They were done by 850pm and I figured Amorphis would come on in the next 10 to 15 minutes, nope. They didn't hit the stage until 920pm and only played until 1040. That's right a little over an hour. Um... you've been around for over 15 years, you have 13 studio albums, more than enough material to play for AT LEAST 2 hours. W...T...F. And it sucked because they were great. I really enjoyed it, but I waited for them longer than they were actually on stage. That sucked.

The set was great. I knew I'd be ok since I have most of their albums. I don't have the first two or last three, so I recognized most of the stuff. They stuck to mostly their new material and it was disappointing they didn't play more from Tuonela like Rusty Moon or Divinity, but they played from Elegy, Skyforger, Eclipse and Silent Waters, that I can recall right now that I recognized.

So, Amorphis on stage, awesome. Actual concert time plus wait time, fucking sucked ass. I was in pain after the concert from being up so late and having been standing for so long. I slept most of Sunday.
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That's crap. I'm sure they played a decent long set when I saw them.
 
Black Wizard said:
Opening acts are uncommon in Mexico? @Onhell :confused: That sounds great in a way. The only bands I've seen play without support acts are Rush, Dream Theater, Avantasia and, er, The Iron Maidens. Support bands are the norm over here.
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They're normally announced, but every concert I've been to, even Mago de Oz, didn't have one. I don't mind them, just tell me lol.
 
Yeah, I felt a tad cheated. The ticket wasn't that much cheaper than what I usually pay for concerts here. Therion and Epica were in the $750MXN range in slightly bigger venues. I wonder if that was it. I could've sworn we weren't more than 300 people... maybe less. But that shouldn't matter. When I did stand-up and now as a teacher you do your set or class as planned regardless of crowd/class size. The merch was expensive too. actually, the hats and t-shirts were at an expected price, but they were selling lanyards for $200! I didn't have the money for a t-shirt ($350), and I have plenty of hats. I NEED a lanyard for work, but I wasn't about to spend a third of the ticket price on one even if I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of it. I was sad they weren't selling the liter plastic cups they usually do lol. I'm seeing Epica in October again, so I'll buy another one then to add to my collection.
 
I've never seen a band like Amorphis (mid-level popularity, mostly plays small theatres or medium-sized clubs) play without an opener. Even if the band isn't on the bill they always try to get some "local" bands in there to guarantee an extra 50-100 tickets sold. It's weird to expect that there would be no opener at a metal show. The last show I saw like that was Nightwish and it was honestly bizarre. Super cool cause they were done by 10pm, but it was still weird.

In regards to set length: that sucks. When I saw Amorphis a couple years ago they only played about 75-80 minutes as well. I think the reason is that they're doing these tours with minimum 2 other bands (sometimes 3-4) so that length makes sense when the bill is stacked. For your show it sounds like none of the other bands on the tour made it, but they still stuck to the same pre-planned setlist which is a bummer. This has been happening a lot recently and it sucks. I've seen Symphony X headline shows and play 75 minutes, which is just absurd.
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
I've never seen a band like Amorphis (mid-level popularity, mostly plays small theatres or medium-sized clubs) play without an opener. Even if the band isn't on the bill they always try to get some "local" bands in there to guarantee an extra 50-100 tickets sold. It's weird to expect that there would be no opener at a metal show. The last show I saw like that was Nightwish and it was honestly bizarre. Super cool cause they were done by 10pm, but it was still weird.

In regards to set length: that sucks. When I saw Amorphis a couple years ago they only played about 75-80 minutes as well. I think the reason is that they're doing these tours with minimum 2 other bands (sometimes 3-4) so that length makes sense when the bill is stacked. For your show it sounds like none of the other bands on the tour made it, but they still stuck to the same pre-planned setlist which is a bummer. This has been happening a lot recently and it sucks. I've seen Symphony X headline shows and play 75 minutes, which is just absurd.
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I know!

So when I saw Metallica in '99 in Mexico City, it was at a large ARENA.... no openning act. In the U.S even in tiny venues there were ALWAYS not one, but two openning bands... ALWAYS and of course at least one of them would be on the ticket. When I came back to Mexico I got used to the always being openning acts and to my surprise none to this pont had. Didn't know that tid bit about Amorphis and yes.... it sucked they played a festival/coheadlining length set rather than a sole headlining.

As for Symphony X, I haven't seen them live, but as a prog metal band they can't play essentially the length of one of their albums lol. I agree that's just ridiculous.

At any rate, to refocus it on the BAND and their MUSIC. I absolutely love Amorphis. It was great to see them live, Tomi is a great frontman and the rest of the band is very... Nordic lol. You know, they just stand their and do their thing, not moving much outside of playing their instruments very well. Therion is like that to, very static except for whoever they hired as lead vocals for that tour.

I definitely want to buy the albums I've missed since The Beginning of Time.
 
Amorphis plays shorter shows because of the vocals. Tomi wouldn't be as good as he is if he sang 2 hours or more every night. One year difference between him and Akerfeldt and Tomi sounds exactly the same as he did when he joined Amorphis in 2006, whereas Akerfeldt struggles even with 2008 stuff.
 
He can take a break while we listen to an instrumental set or a drum solo. Alice Cooper does this due to the high energy demands of the show and even Labrie of Dt and Bruce disappear during long solos. I see the reasoning, but there are ways to fix it.
 
I'm honestly debating buying tickets for this based on the album choice. Tales is a great record, but it's only 40 minutes long. When they played similar anniversary shows in Europe 5 years ago, they only filled out the set with other songs from the same era. I much prefer the last 3-4 albums over the early stuff and I don't care for Entombed or Nervosa at all. :S
 
That's exactly what I complained about during their last show. WAY too short. It was AMAZING, since, like you, I prefer their stuff from Eclipse onwards. So yeah, sleep on it, flip a coin, go to an Oracle.... then don't buy them :p
 
I missed the last tour (with Delain) because I was sick.

I would rather my first Amorphis show not be one of the older lps in its' entirety (I prefer the last half of their career), but I will still be there at the Houston show to finally see them live.
 
Tomi's old/new band has a new album coming out:


This is the first single from the new (2nd) album. 1st album was released before Tomi sang on his 1st Amorphis album, in 2005.
 
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