Extreme Music Blog

As promised I keep you posted and add all the reports for the concerts I have recently visited. Today we are going back to my birthday which – what else? – was celebrated on a concert.

I made an appointment with the event manager of the new venue called “Arena” which was mainly build for basketball because the EnBW Ludwigsburg team is in the premier league. But the concept was also to build a small arena for other sports events and for concerts. So Markus (A&R of SUPREME CHAOS RECORDS), Tanja (Catering management for the METAL NIGHTS event series) and I wanted to check out the new venue and its possibilities. Yet, this venue might be too large for any kind of events in the size we are doing but it is always good to know what range of venues we can possibly offer as local promoter. Thomas showed us even the smallest amenity of the venue and was quite patient in answering all our questions. At some points it was kind of hard to keep cool for us when we were next to Micheal Akerfeldt who was sitting around there phoning or when standing next to the gear of John Petrucci.

Anyway after the inspection of the Arena Ludwigsburg we picked up some beers to celebrate and bridged the time gap to the concert with boozing and talking about music.

I wanted to see UNEXPECT because I liked their myspace stuff. Unfortunately they were not able to transport it onto stage. Sure, they did a great job but simply did not meet my expectations. After approx. 20 minutes they had to leave the stage. Good and very progressive start for this night. Complex, sometimes even weired songs garnished with melodic female vocals and grunts. Interesting music.

After getting another beer and meeting some people, I was surprised by the clear sound that came from the stage. BIGELF blew me straight to the wall. Not with any kind of aggression but with sheer musicality and maybe a bit of nostalgia. 70s inspired rock with a modern progressive touch convinced me with its pure authenticity. Loads of analogue synthesizers and Hammond sounds played by the singer who was surrounded by various old fashioned keyboard instruments. The four piece was dressed up in proper style with bell-bottoms. And you could see and almost feel that they were breathing this kind of music every day. Great!

BIGELF

One reason to visit this concert was eventually to see OPETH. The Swedes have disappointed me on the last club shows with the new line up (Frederik on guitar). But after the furious show on Rockhard festival this year I was really curious if they could prove themselves this evening. And they could! “Windowpane” is nothing but a great start for a very soulful set followed by “Lotuseater”, maybe one of the best OPETH songs ever. OPETH abstained from most extreme parts this evening and concentrated on the more progressive rock songs – maybe to fit better to the other bands. Good playing, great and this time very funny announcements from Mikael who could emphasize his great voice with these songs. The only downer was that they missed out either of their hits “Deliverance” or “Demon of the Fall”.

Setlist OPETH:
1. Windowpane
2. The Lotus Eater
3. Reverie/Harlequin Forest
4. Burden
5. The Leper Affinity
6. Hex Omega

OPETH

Last time I saw DREAM THEATER they played in the Beethoven Saal of the Liederhalle in Stuttgart which is built for opera and classical concerts. The sound there was really bad because of all the reflecting walls. But in the Arena everything sounded right. Even James LaBrie did a good job and was showing a solid performance although I could not get the idea out of my head that he was behaving like a diva stepping off the stage all the time he had no vocals to do. DREAM THEATER is of course also about the musicians and their abilities. John Petrucci showed some good guitar solo stuff but he tried to keep it short. He got my sympathies for this and also for the fact that he had long hair again. And he must have done a lot of muscle training the last two years. Somehow he looked like he got out of prison right before the tour started. Of course Jordan Ruddess had his special show but looked really absurd with his wizard hat he put on for some songs. John Myung kept in the back mostly and you could hardly see anything of him. Too bad. Mike Portney of course was posing like always. My real highlight of the show was “The Mirror” / “Lie” from the “Awake” album which was played as the fluent combination like you can hear it on the album. Simply amazing. Because I am not into the “newer” stuff I cannot point out any other highlight. This might be also due to the fact that their real one and only hit song “Pull me under” was missing.

Setlist DREAM THEATER:
1. A Nightmare to Remember
2. The Mirror
3. Lie
4. Prophets of War
5. Wither
6. The Dance of Eternity
7. One Last Time
8. In the Name of God
9. The Count of Tuscany

What a nice evening and maybe the best birthday present for a music enthusiast like me. Although OPETH did not play “Deliverance” and DREAM THEATER threw aboard their hit “Pull me under” this was a great experience musical wise. But also the inspection of this new venue which was opened 1st of October made this evening unforgettable maybe even added an adventurous note.

Be sure to keep coming back. The next days I will put up the interview I did with Peter (OPETH) back in 2005…

DREAM THEATER: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
OPETH: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
BIGELF: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise
UNEXPECT: Homepage – MySpace – Merchandise

Arena Ludwigsburg: Homepage

Upfront of organizing this show I already knew that this would be something for progressive death metal enthusiasts only. Addressing a small and very unique crowd has never been simple but we did our best in the fields of promotion due to a bunch of helpers. Anyway I wanted to do this show because I adore the precision and musical virtuosity (if you can say so for musicians playing brutal death metal) of the bands that were scheduled.

The advance sales were quite low and there were only approx. 40 people attending the shows of this amazing package. All the ones who stayed at home this rainy day have missed an event with a really familiar atmosphere and bands that were playing death metal over the top – every single one with its very own approach.

As SUBCONSCIOUS entered the stage there were only few people in front of the stage but it seems like everyone enjoyed the progressive death / thrash mix which is always described with its propinquity to Chuck Schuldiners DEATH which is not only based on the vocals which have the typical throaty sound but also results from the quite similar approach to death metal by using very complex patterns and incredible guitars sweeping solos. Rainer on bass guitar was once again playing in an own world. A lot of people compare him to Steve DiGiorgio but I know that he has never heard this name before nor did he even knew bands like DEATH, MESHUGGAH or ATHEIST before he joined SUBCONSCIOUS. The band decided to put some new songs on the set list which made the show a lot more interesting for me because I have seen them for more than a dozen time and also because this might be possible songs for an upcoming album which would probably again be released on my label Supreme Chaos Records which is dedicated to progressive extreme music anyway. The last two albums were released there – so be sure to check this band out if you are into DEATH or similar.

SUBCONSCIOUS

From Southern Germany to Osnabrück where EMBEDDED are coming from. I have heard several tracks of their new record “Beyond the Flesh” released on DB Agency earlier this year. They play very down to earth death metal with a kind of old school attitude but still with enough technical finesse to fit into this billing. And so was their live show – very strong and straight forward. You could see the first people moving around. EMBEDDED put up a decent death metal show and went at full tilt.

EMBEDDED

Some of the attendees were waiting for DEADBORN to show up on stage and so they did. Technically on a high level they fired a broadside of brutal death metal with just one guitar. And they did a hell of a job showing up with a very powerful stage presence. I knew this local band for some years and have never seen them live paying full attention before. So they blew me right to the wall. If you have the possibility be sure to check out one of their next shows!

DEADBORN

I was really curious about how CENTAURUS-A would transpose their very complex and highly progressive songs onto a club stage. After the show I was sure that the guitar players of CENTAURUS-A must be in league with the devil. It was simply insane what this band showed on stage and it is also sad that this band does not get more attention! Instead there are bands like NECROPHAGIST and OBSCURA take all the credit for highly progressive death metal from Germany (which they deserve for sure but other bands do as well). CENTAURUS-A means guitar licks beyond the speed of light combined with pure drumming complexity and under-laid by cool bass lines. You could either just watch these guys playing with your jaw hitting the ground or go totally crazy…

CENTAURUS-A

Four amazing bands, nice people – both on and in front of the stage -, a great concert crew made an unforgettable evening with top-notch death metal – period!

Links:
CENTAURUS-A: MySpace – Merchandise
DEADBORN: MySpace – Merchandise
EMBEDDED: MySpace – Merchandise
SUBCONSCIOUS: MySpace – Merchandise

Metal Nights homepage:  Event details – Gallery

And now I am off through the rain to see TANKARD.