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Events and Reports - Various Artists - The Neckbreakers Ball tour - April 11th 2006, Aarhus - Featuring Scar Symmetry, One Man Army and the Undead Quartet, Amorphis, Soilwork and Hypocrisy
The Neckbreakers Ball tour is a pretty cool deal with 5 hot Nuclear Blast artists touring through Europe right now. I went to see the first show of the tour, starting 11th of April in Denmark with a total of 16 shows for the next couple of weeks. With 5 bands playing every day and the show starting around 8 oclock, there has to be some pretty fast switching between bands, which luckily was the case for this tour. Kudos for the roadies.
Scar Symmetry
The opening band was Scar Symmetry, who I really had looked forward to seeing. I recently recieved a promo of their new cd Pitch Black Progress and it really blew me away. Great progressive death/power metal with great growls and impressive clean vocals (one of the few bands who actually succesfully used this concept). So I was pretty curious to see how they would pull that off on stage.
Well, basically, they couldn't. I had two problems with Scar Symmetry live: 1) The clean voclas and 2) The live show. First of all, the growling and screaming worked really well, but man, it's not enough to be able to sing the notes live, you have to make the audience believe that you mean it. Now I wonder how they did it in the studio because it works on the cd...
As for my second concern, they didn't really get out to the audience. I guess they still need some live experience. This was especially evident in contrast to the other bands playing after.
Ok, so I was kind of disappointed here, probably because I had pretty high expectations but still there were some highlights, among others Per Nilsson's amazing solos. Watching him play was worth all of it.
Generally the heavier songs worked much better than the softer songs and I'd say that this is where the force of Scar Symmetry is. When they get real dirty and heavy, they rock! Hopefully the live appearence will come with some practice.
One Man Army and the Undead Quartet
What Scar Symmetry lacked in live presence, Swedish One Man Army and the Undead Quartet did a lot better.
With the charismatic frontman Johan Lindstrand, looking like a fatter version of Wolverine, they got the crowd going. I still prefer Lohan Lindstrand's former band The Crown, but OMAatUQ (no, I'm not going to write the whole name again...) with their death 'n'roll sound also have something good going here too.
Amorpis
I knew little of Finnish Amorphis before this show. The usual 30-second samples I found on the 'net didn't impress me much.
Sounded pretty simple and borring to me. So when they started out, I was pleasantly surprised by their warm organic sound and their laid back very melodic metal. Their singer Tomi Joutsen managed to get in contact with the audience even though he most of the time seemed deeply into the music. With the slow rythms and dreamy keyboards, I wasn't really surprised when I smelled joints around me. This kind of goodnight metal worked much better live than I would have expected.
It's a good experience to see how some bands can deliver a great show without actually seeming to try very hard. They just do it. Guess this ability comes from extensive touring. Amorphis is definitely a band I'll check out again if I get the chance.
Soilwork
I have some mixed feelings about Soilwork. I really liked Natural Born Chaos and Figure Number Five was pretty good too, but the latest one, Stabbing the Drama does absolutely nothing for me. Like In Flames, Soilwork seems to have slipped into the mainstream, aiming for the bigger markets.
Starting out with Follow the Hollow from Natural Born Chaos, Soilwork impressed as a lean, mean live-machine. Singer Bjorn Strid knows exactly how to treat a live audience and his performance was about as professional as it gets. The band was generally tight and well-performing, a witness of extensive touring.
As professional as they were, I still couldn't help being amused by the bass player. Looking like something teleported out from the sixties with a huge beard and an act like he was performing in Jesus Christ Superstar, he certainly did put on a great show.
I noticed that the audience seemed split in two halves. One group would keep shouting for songs from Stabbing the Drama and when they did play a new song, they'd bounce around like crazy. On the other hand, when we heard some of the older songs, the other half would start nodding their heads to the music, wordless growling along. This demonstrates pretty clearly the path Soilwork has taken over the years; starting out as a melodic death metal/thrash act but now leaning more and more towards the numetal scene, and in this way having fans from a big part of the diverse metal scene.
Soilwork is clearly an experienced and hardworking band. Even though I don't care for the path they've chosen, they also play the old songs for the older breed of metallers and put on an impressive show at the same time.
Hypocrisy
The highlight of the evening for me and most of the other fans. Like Soilwork, Hypocrisy is a very experienced live band and with the incredible mr. Tägtgren as frontman, the audience is guaranteed a great show.
I was actually surprised by the intensity Tägtgren radiated on stage. At times he seemed possessed by the devil himself and of course his incredible screams didn't do much to disspell this impression.
With 13 album releases, there will always be somebody who wanted to hear a song they didn't play. But I don't think anybody could bee too disappointed this night. Classics and new songs were mixed, with Eraser and Warpath special highlights for me. The crowd was more than ready for Hypocrisy which of course gave the band even more energy to perform.
The solos were played by both Tägtgren and the other guitarist, Andreas Holma, showcasing the musicality of both musicians. Again we are honored by a band with plenty of live experience, more than capable of playing their music tight while keeping the connection with the audience. There were however a few parts where Tägtgren was quite busy doing vocals while playing complex guitar riffs. Here he didn't have the same connectioon with the audience, but luckily this was not for long. The samples worked pretty well, especially intros would have been missed if they had been left out. Only one time did I notice a guitar melody line missing. It's not always samples work live and especially since this was the first concert of the tour, it could be expected that something didn't work, but Hypocrisy nailed it.
When the show was over, we were treated with two extra songs, the hit song Warpath from the great new Virus album with the incredible chorus: "A new world has begun, the world is falliiiiiiiiiiing!". Second extra was the classic Rosswell 47. Hypocrisy probably thought the show was over at this point but the audience didn't quite agree. We kept shouting for more and finally they entered the stage with Tägtgren asking if we really wanted some more. I guess I don't even have to explain the answer to that question. So Hypocrisy, clearly happy with the great response from the audience, treated us with another classic, Final Chapter.
In conclusion I'll give credit to Nuclear Blast for putting such a great bunch of bands on the road together. The entrance may not be cheap but considering the bang for the buck, this is a package worth paying for.
The 5 different bands complement each other very well, covering different genres yet delivering a show most metalheadz would approve of.
Most of the bands excel at performing live pretty much guaranteeing a great show.
| Click pictures for a bigger version
Scar Symmetry
Scar Symmetry
Soilwork
One Man Army and the Undead Quartet
One Man Army and the Undead Quartet
Amorphis
Amorphis
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy
All pictures taken by Lars Bisballe Jensen | Written by Tajs
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Anders Graungaard (Anonymous) - Thursday, April 27, 2006 | you own the copyright of the pictures.. think its my hand on one of them :P i want to ask if i could use them for wallpapers :) ?
email: Anders@graungaard.dk
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| Comment by Fred Berg (Anonymous) - Thursday, April 27, 2006 | Very nice pics of the bands, but are there more pictures some place here or on other website?
If some one knows please tell me, I would love to see more pics from that night...It was "rånice" man ^^
email: Bevarmads@gmail.com
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| Comment by Tajs (Anonymous) - Tuesday, May 9, 2006 | Thanx for the thumbs up about the pictures. My photographer Lars Bisballe Jensen took them and I know he took a lot, but I'm pretty sure these are the only ones online.
You are ofcourse welcome to use them for wallpapers, just remeber that if you release them to the public, you need to give Lars credit, ok?
Tajs
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| Comment by roberto arce (Anonymous) - Wednesday, June 14, 2006 | hell yea scar symmetry great fantastic amazing band,, come to mexico please!!!!!!!!!!!
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| Comment by danielle (Anonymous) - Tuesday, April 17, 2007 | peter tagtgren you are the be(a)st!!!i love you!
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