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Events and Reports - Evergrey - Live At Aalborg Metal Festival - November 1st, 2003
This otherwise successful day didn't start well at all, waking up with a hangover that made it difficult to do anything than remain completely still and hope for some recreation during the day. The reason for this horrible situation was that RevelationZ Magazine the day before had held its third staff meeting with all that follows. Webmaster Steen had been so nice and mixed 10 litres of an extremely well tasting green drink, which nevertheless resulted in an evening filled with intoxicating moments. After a rather successful consumption of spareribs at Bones we went bowling (god dammit, it must have been that green stuff that had an effect on my performance) and later we trashed Steen's place with lots of great Metal hymns and loud singing till the early morning (those poor neighbours).
Enough of this unserious stuff, today was Saturday and the destination for most of RevelationZ Magazine Danish's section was Aalborg Metal Festival, a full day/night indoor event with lots of live music, shopping, cold beers and me trying to recuperate myself with a nice red drink (never again that green stuff) in the bar enjoying Iron Maiden's Fear Of The Dark, I must admit that helped quite a lot on my condition.
The main purpose for me was to see the Swedish Power Metal band Evergrey, having made 4 great albums and especially impressing me with their latest two releases In Search Of Truth and their brilliant new release Recreation Day (review).
When talking about bands having a certain image or special characteristics I think that when it comes to Evergrey, their special thing must be the unique dark, melancholic, atmospheric musical style mixed with a lot of direct hardness and progressive detours, this again coupled with a lyrical universe of sorrow, despair and frustration but also with small doorways to get past these feelings, O.k. you get the picture ;).
After the curtain went sideways and the dark intro music had died out, the band hammered right into Blinded from their latest album. A cool melodic cut that unfortunately was scarred by a sound that was very problematic, the vocals and keys being much too low. Lucky-wise the sound got better during the show without never really becoming fantastic or entirely well balanced.
I was very pleased to hear one of my faves in End Of Your Days, a completely genius emotional piece of art. The vocals by Tom S. Englund were simply breathtaking and the bombastic chorus hit like wall of stone. Rikard Zander's delivered some soothing keyboard arrangements this evening and the covering key atmosphere in this song worked splendid.
From their third album Solitude-Dominace-Tradegy we got three cool tracks, all well delivered and nicely fitting into the set. Among them the dark Solitude Within, the hard grooving bass lines laid firmly down by Michael Håkansson and a very tight guitar riff section really came out ground solid.
The Encounter was one of five songs from their fantastic In Search Of Truth album, a great aggressive beginning, a harmonious slow guitar solo (we really did get some great lead guitar work this evening) and once again fantastic vocal parts.
Rulers Of The Mind is clearly one of my favourite Evergrey songs and the powerful version this evening didn't let me down, the slow part when Tom starts to sing "I'm trying I'm failing unanswered cries unites" is completely moving and extremely melancholic. The progressive twist found in their songs makes the music seem interesting all the time, and the band has the technical level needed in bringing music like this off the stage in a very powerful way.
Watching The Skies is another example of this, here the complex drumming from new man in the job Jonas Ekdahl and the ultra heavy riffs delivered by axe-man Henrik Danhage worked fantastic as well as the dark ending vocal part.
Unfortunately only three songs from Recreation Day were featured but I was ecstatic to hear the beginning of the song Recreation Day and the brilliant melodic opening line "one step at the time, small progress seems futile but is as valuable as life". A mind-blowing epic track with an all-embracing chorus and the band performing the slow mid-section with great ease and full control.
As the closing track Aalborg Metal Festival got seriously shaken to the ground by the fantastic, fast and hymn-like The Masterplan, the crowd was incorporated nicely into the action and the heads were banging wildly around the hall.
The connection to the crowd throughout the concert was rather good, Tom joking around with his passion for beers and all in all involving the audience in the show.
A better sound and a bit more show in the show would have made this great concert even better, and hey I was feeling even better now. Do they have that green stuff in the bar?
Evergrey surely delivered the goods with a strong, well played and energy packed performance.
Setlist
1. Blinded
2. End Of Your Days
3. Nosferatu
4. The Encounter
5. Rulers Of The Mind
6. Recreation Day
7. She Speaks To The Dead
8. Watching The Skies
9. Mark Of The Triangle
10. Solitude Within
11. The Masterplan
| You can click most pictures for a bigger version
The night before... Nina James Dio & Steen Adams entertain... (yes that's me in the back shouting out the window)
Tom showing his special guitar move
All pictures taken by Tommy | Written by Tommy
Monday, November 17, 2003 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Arun (Anonymous) - Friday, August 6, 2004 | nice rite up and pix
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