The Concert Thread

Saw The Darkness this weekend, as part of a mini-festival in Stockholm.

One of my favourite bands, and probably the last on that list I hadn't seen live before (of the currently active ones). Awesome performance from the band, but sadly half the audience weren't there for them and left before or during their performance (they headlined). They struggled with the sound first couple of songs, with vocals a bit low in the mix, something which was acknowledged by the band and led to pauses which were drawn out as long as possible while the crew tried to fix it, but when they finally fixed it they sounded awesome. Except for a decent amount of loyal die-hard fans, the rest of the audience ranged from bored to outright hostile though, which surprised me considering that they headlined. The very provocative and just plain weird talks by Justin Hawkins didn't exactly help things. I have literally never experienced such a tension between band and audience before - the fans loved it, but the non-fans...

Setlist contained the whole of their debut Permission to Land bar one song, and a couple of songs from the other albums. Got to hear favourite "Barbarian" from the latest one so I can't complain.

Other bands were The Hooters (amazing), Helix (very bland) and an allstar tribute band consisting of Ian Haugland and Mic Michaeli from Europe, Rob Marcello from Danger Danger and Pontus Norgren from Hammerfall among others - with guests including John Norum and Mikkey Dee. The theme of the night for this lot was "how much can you screw up?" Norgren, a well regarded guitarplayer otherwise, stood for basically a whole song pretending to play. (Didn't bother rehearsing and making sure your sound fit with the rest, did you?) Ian Haugland, a drummer, stood for the best vocal performance during "Ace of Spades" while Mikkey Dee took over the drums, which says something about the level of the vocal performance from a non-introduced singer I didn't recognize. Rob Marcello was obviously far above his colleague on the other side of the stage, and remained professional but in terms of impact, John Norum made the biggest difference (no matter if Haugland or Dee were behind the drumkit).
 
All my concerts are over for me this year but I managed to see loads though. Perks of living near London and still being a student. :)

This year I managed to see

February 3rd, London: Helloween
February 12th, Wolverhampton*: Symphony X
February 19th, London: Symphony X
February 26th, London: Devilskin/Skarlett Riot
March 8th, London: Avantasia
May 22nd, London: Blind Guardian
June 12th, Download Festival: Iron Maiden, Nightwish, Gojira, Disturbed
June 15th, Oslo: Iron Maiden
June 19th, Oxford: Testament
August 25th, London: Thrice
October 1st, London: Love Zombies/The Amorettes
November 4th, London: Amon Amarth/Testament
November 13th, London: Delain/Evergrey
December 6th, London: Iced Earth

* this was very tenuously Wolverhampton

My favourite show of the year was probably the Amon Amarth gig. I'd never seen them before but they put on a great show and the crowd was great fun. I really enjoyed their performance despite not knowing much of their music before seeing them. I mainly bought the ticket to see Testament again but I thought they were a little off that night. They still performed well but I've seen them better and I don't think their sound was particularly good either. Very glad that I saw Amon Amarth though and I'd be happy to see them again (hopefully at Bloodstock next year!).

Delain's show was another stand-out for me. As with the Amon Amarth gig, I mainly went to see the support band, Evergrey, but ended up enjoying Delain far more. I'd only started listening to Delain during summer and this year I've become a big fan of them .

The biggest surprises of the year were probably Devilskin and Ensiferum. I went to a gig in a tiny venue in Camden (London) at the end of February while hungover to see a band called Skarlett Riot whom I'd seen supporting Hammerfall in May last year. Devilskin were the headline band at that gig and they were actually pretty damn good! I saw Ensiferum supporting Iced Earth last week. I'd only listened to them a little bit in the run-up to the show but also really enjoyed their show despite not being familiar with the music.

The biggest disappointment of the year was probably Symphony X. Not because they played poorly - their performance was good - but they played the entirety of their new album without saying they'd do that when the tour was announced. For a band who take a long time between albums and tours it stand to reason that there will be a lot of people at their shows who haven't seen them before and would like to see them play a better mix of songs. Plus the whole night in "Wolverhampton" was extremely frustrating in general - see the Symphony X thread for details of that.


I'm already looking forward to another (hopefully) packed year of concerts! It's looking good so far. Here's the current schedule:

3rd February, London: Epica/Powerwolf
10th February, London: Anthrax*
19th February, London: Firewind
2nd March, London: Kreator/Sepultura
11th March, Birmingham: Gojira**
6th May, Dublin: Iron Maiden
16th May, Glasgow: Iron Maiden
21st May, Birmingham: Iron Maiden
27th May, London: Iron Maiden***
11th August, Bloodstock Festival: Amon Amarth, Blind Guardian, Testament****

* This will be the first time I've seen Anthrax headlining, and I'll also get the rare chance to see The Raven Age who never support anyone! I also have a thing about going to gigs on Fridays in February.
** First time I'll see Gojira headlining. Finally!
*** Is anyone else going to this?
**** Haven't bought a ticket yet, waiting to see what the whole weekend is like before deciding on a weekend or day ticket.
 
My final gig of 2016 was last week and it was Frank Turner at Rock City in Nottingham. And I have to say, it was probably the second best gig I've been to this year (behind David Gilmour). The setlist was great, the crowd was absolutely mental, and I even enjoyed the support acts a heck of a lot. It was also Frank's 2000th gig, so it was a kind of a special night for everybody who was there.

Oh, I started the gig here...

upload_2016-12-23_17-10-53.jpeg

And ended here...

upload_2016-12-23_17-11-38.jpeg

Also, yesterday, I bought tickets for Brit Floyd in Birmingham in February. So my current concert line up for 2017 is this:

13/01/17 - Sabaton - Manchester O2 Apollo
22/01/17 - Black Sabbath - Manchester Arena
24/02/17 - Brit Floyd - Birmingham Symphony Hall
13/03/17 - Devin Townsend Project - Manchester Academy
01/04/17 - Ghost - Birmingham O2 Academy
21/04/17 - Chris De Burgh - York Barbican
21/05/17 - Iron Maiden - Birmingham Barclaycard Arena
 
Who is Frank Turner?

Next month I'm going to Martin Turner (ex -Wishbone Ash). Among other stuff, his band will play the whole Argus album.
 
The first record he owned was the Killers album from Iron Maiden. Metal was the first musical direction he adored and he still does.
 
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