Black Wizard
Pleb Hunter
The Friday before last (22nd March) I went to my first concert of 2019 after a three month interlude without any live music. It was tough. I saw Kamelot, Evergrey and Visions of Cheeselantis at the o2 Academy2 in Birmingham. It's a very small venue (although not the smallest room they have!) with a capacity of 600 and I didn't realize the show would be in the small room until I joined the queue (I actually saw Iced Earth in that same room many years ago on the 'Dystopia' tour) but perhaps I should have realized that it would be in the small room as Kamelot are no way big enough to play in the 3000 capacity main room where Gojira have played and will play again. The ticket also stated the o2 Academy2.
Visions of Cheeselantis opened the show. They were decent but their music is too bland for me. Clementine Delauney has a really nice voice but everything Visions of Cheeselantis do is so bubblegum and safe that she doesn't use her voice the way she could do. They also have a male singer (vocals only, no instruments) whom Clementine duets with for most of the set and I suppose they duet quite well but I'm not keen on the male/female duet thing in Metal. It's fine if the male vocalist is mainly backing vocals or does his own parts (like with Nightwish and Epica) but the combination of the two in this manner doesn't interest me. So basically Visions of Cheeselantis were fine, but all together unremarkable.
Evergrey were the main support and the primary reason I bought the ticket as they've been one of my favourite bands of the last few years and this is now the fifth year running I've seen them. They mostly played songs from their recent post-hiatus albums (which I'm fine with as I know that stuff the best) with only one older song ('A Touch of Blessing'). I would've liked them to have played a couple more older songs but they were only a support band so were pushed for time. They played really well and sounded great. Hopefully they'll come back to do a proper headline set later in the year. I managed to get a guitar pick too. Muahahaha.
It was a bit strange seeing Kamelot in such a small venue as they have a few different things happening going on during their set - not least having their guest vocalist Lauren Hart coming on stage a few times - so it was a bit cramped on the small stage. I enjoyed Kamelot's set which I listened to on Spotify a few times as I am not all that familiar with much of their music. The atmosphere was great which was probably helped by the tiny venue and Tommy is a great frontman and singer. The songs I knew the best are from the new album, 'Center of the Universe' (from 'Epica') and 'The Great Pandemonium' (from 'Poetry For The Poisoned') but recognized some of their other popular songs like 'When the Lights go Down' and 'Liar Liar' (which closed the set) from checking the setlist out beforehand and from seeing them a couple of times last year. They could do without the drum solo though. Very good performance but as I'm not a big Kamelot fan I don't see myself going to another one of their shows unless they have good support again (Cellar Darling last year and Evergrey this year).
After the Kamelot show I stuck around in Birmingham another couple of nights to see Cellar Darling play in a tiny venue quite a way out of the city centre - a pub called the Hare and Hounds with a 250 capacity room for gigs. There were two support acts: another Swiss band called Appearance of Nothing who were OK but the highlight was Anna Murphy joining them on stage for a song she'd recorded guest vocals for, and a band from Blackpool (I think) called Blanket who were some sort of electronic, melodic, proggy Rock thing sort of and they were fine but not memorable.
This was the fourth time in about eighteen months I'd seen Cellar Darling and the second time headlining (other two were supporting Delain and Kamelot) but this show was the best by far. They were absolutely outstanding. The first few songs were from their debut album 'This Is The Sound' before playing almost all of their new album 'The Spell'. It had only been released two days before the gig so I wasn't very familiar with most of the new stuff aside from the songs they'd released in the run up to release. Despite my unfamiliarity with the new songs I was spellbound by the performance with Anna Murphy's awesome vocals and the weird but fitting hurdy-gurdy. They closed the set with their cover of Queen's 'Prophet's Song' (better than the original in my opinion!) and another song from their first album. Anna said they'd hang out at the merch stall after to sign stuff and talk about anything we wanted so I yelled "BREXIT!" to which Anna said "No! We definitely won't be talking about Brexit. Our PR guy told us not to talk about that."
I bought the new album and got the band to sign it and my ticket and also got a photo with them. #BestFriends
On Tuesday I was supposed to see Skarlett Riot (a very poppy English band) in Oxford but it got cancelled on Monday. It was arranged for tickets for the Oxford show to be valid for the London show on Monday but as I wasn't getting home from Birmingham until 6pm on Monday I had to give it a miss and take the refund. I'd already booked train tickets to/from Oxford though.
I went to see Captain Marvel on Tuesday instead.
Last night I gave myself a birthday treat and went to see The Lounge Kittens in London. They're a comedy all-female trio who cover Rock/Pop songs in Lounge Music style with just a keyboard and their voices. It's really odd to see Limp Bizkit's Rollin performed with vocal harmonies, but also totally genius. I'm not familiar with the original versions of some of the Hip-Hop stuff they cover but I suspect they do a better job than the originals. There was one support act: a dude called Grant Sharkey who does satirical song about modern life while playing a double bass, coverign things like Islamaphobia, Wetherspoons pubs and, of course, Brexit.
It was a bit of a busy week so I'm glad I took the time off work. Frustrating that four gigs turned into three, but I'm happy to end the live music dry spell I've been enduring since seeing Kreator in mid-December.
More live music in the form of Avantasia in a couple of weeks, assuming that the shifted Brexit Day doesn't stop them getting into the country.
16/4 Avantasia, London
1/6 Alexisonfire, London
6/6 Symphony X, London
29/6 Gojira, Birmingham
30/6 Demons & Wizards, London
5/8 Iron Maiden, Montreal
8-11/8 Scorpions, Sabaton, Anthrax, Powerwolf, Soilwork etc. @ Bloodstock Festival
28/9 Ancient Bards, Birmingham
31/10 Beyond the Black, London
25/11 Halestorm, Nottingham
Visions of Cheeselantis opened the show. They were decent but their music is too bland for me. Clementine Delauney has a really nice voice but everything Visions of Cheeselantis do is so bubblegum and safe that she doesn't use her voice the way she could do. They also have a male singer (vocals only, no instruments) whom Clementine duets with for most of the set and I suppose they duet quite well but I'm not keen on the male/female duet thing in Metal. It's fine if the male vocalist is mainly backing vocals or does his own parts (like with Nightwish and Epica) but the combination of the two in this manner doesn't interest me. So basically Visions of Cheeselantis were fine, but all together unremarkable.
Evergrey were the main support and the primary reason I bought the ticket as they've been one of my favourite bands of the last few years and this is now the fifth year running I've seen them. They mostly played songs from their recent post-hiatus albums (which I'm fine with as I know that stuff the best) with only one older song ('A Touch of Blessing'). I would've liked them to have played a couple more older songs but they were only a support band so were pushed for time. They played really well and sounded great. Hopefully they'll come back to do a proper headline set later in the year. I managed to get a guitar pick too. Muahahaha.
It was a bit strange seeing Kamelot in such a small venue as they have a few different things happening going on during their set - not least having their guest vocalist Lauren Hart coming on stage a few times - so it was a bit cramped on the small stage. I enjoyed Kamelot's set which I listened to on Spotify a few times as I am not all that familiar with much of their music. The atmosphere was great which was probably helped by the tiny venue and Tommy is a great frontman and singer. The songs I knew the best are from the new album, 'Center of the Universe' (from 'Epica') and 'The Great Pandemonium' (from 'Poetry For The Poisoned') but recognized some of their other popular songs like 'When the Lights go Down' and 'Liar Liar' (which closed the set) from checking the setlist out beforehand and from seeing them a couple of times last year. They could do without the drum solo though. Very good performance but as I'm not a big Kamelot fan I don't see myself going to another one of their shows unless they have good support again (Cellar Darling last year and Evergrey this year).
After the Kamelot show I stuck around in Birmingham another couple of nights to see Cellar Darling play in a tiny venue quite a way out of the city centre - a pub called the Hare and Hounds with a 250 capacity room for gigs. There were two support acts: another Swiss band called Appearance of Nothing who were OK but the highlight was Anna Murphy joining them on stage for a song she'd recorded guest vocals for, and a band from Blackpool (I think) called Blanket who were some sort of electronic, melodic, proggy Rock thing sort of and they were fine but not memorable.
This was the fourth time in about eighteen months I'd seen Cellar Darling and the second time headlining (other two were supporting Delain and Kamelot) but this show was the best by far. They were absolutely outstanding. The first few songs were from their debut album 'This Is The Sound' before playing almost all of their new album 'The Spell'. It had only been released two days before the gig so I wasn't very familiar with most of the new stuff aside from the songs they'd released in the run up to release. Despite my unfamiliarity with the new songs I was spellbound by the performance with Anna Murphy's awesome vocals and the weird but fitting hurdy-gurdy. They closed the set with their cover of Queen's 'Prophet's Song' (better than the original in my opinion!) and another song from their first album. Anna said they'd hang out at the merch stall after to sign stuff and talk about anything we wanted so I yelled "BREXIT!" to which Anna said "No! We definitely won't be talking about Brexit. Our PR guy told us not to talk about that."
I bought the new album and got the band to sign it and my ticket and also got a photo with them. #BestFriendsOn Tuesday I was supposed to see Skarlett Riot (a very poppy English band) in Oxford but it got cancelled on Monday. It was arranged for tickets for the Oxford show to be valid for the London show on Monday but as I wasn't getting home from Birmingham until 6pm on Monday I had to give it a miss and take the refund. I'd already booked train tickets to/from Oxford though.
I went to see Captain Marvel on Tuesday instead.Last night I gave myself a birthday treat and went to see The Lounge Kittens in London. They're a comedy all-female trio who cover Rock/Pop songs in Lounge Music style with just a keyboard and their voices. It's really odd to see Limp Bizkit's Rollin performed with vocal harmonies, but also totally genius. I'm not familiar with the original versions of some of the Hip-Hop stuff they cover but I suspect they do a better job than the originals. There was one support act: a dude called Grant Sharkey who does satirical song about modern life while playing a double bass, coverign things like Islamaphobia, Wetherspoons pubs and, of course, Brexit.
It was a bit of a busy week so I'm glad I took the time off work. Frustrating that four gigs turned into three, but I'm happy to end the live music dry spell I've been enduring since seeing Kreator in mid-December.
More live music in the form of Avantasia in a couple of weeks, assuming that the shifted Brexit Day doesn't stop them getting into the country.
16/4 Avantasia, London
1/6 Alexisonfire, London
6/6 Symphony X, London
29/6 Gojira, Birmingham
30/6 Demons & Wizards, London
5/8 Iron Maiden, Montreal
8-11/8 Scorpions, Sabaton, Anthrax, Powerwolf, Soilwork etc. @ Bloodstock Festival
28/9 Ancient Bards, Birmingham
31/10 Beyond the Black, London
25/11 Halestorm, Nottingham
I assume that it would be difficult to make it to Montreal the next day then? Are any of the other shows feasible?
That's not including the cost of using the London Underground thiugh.