Concert reviews

[Lucy]

Pilufissicus

I couldn't decipher that. Philosophicus maybe?

[Markus]

Not quite, milady. Pilus et fissio!

[Lucy]

[Lucy]

Yesterday I went to an Indian classical music concert. I'm still in the mood!

Three of the greatest masters visited my city, two North and one South Indian musician. Pandit Abhijit Banerjee, tabla; Pandit Biswajit Roy Chowdhary on sarod and Somnath Roy with ghatam and different South Indian percussion instruments. You can listen to the sarod play here, and the two percussion masters' duet here.

North and South have different musical systems, but in this case the three masters have been playing together! The stage was covered with flowers and the musicians created a very special athmosphere, not only by their music, but the tranquillity and the great respect they showed towards each other and the crowd. They were very funny when they played their adventures on the airport with the language of the music. Pt. Abhijit Banerjee had an extra luggage with the tabla and pakhawaj in it, and the air company wanted him to pay more, but of course he didn't want to. So now they expressed the discussion with music.

I enjoyed the evening a lot, they are some of the greatest musicians in India, and they really did their best. They gave us an insight into the world of rhythms and melodies. My favourite experience is when the raga starts very slowly, creating a meditative mood, nestling, taking the thougths far away. Then slowly, step by step it speeds up to the point when the hands of the musician literally can't be seen. I don't know how to tell in another way but the music becomes very shiny. Somehow I feel that it brings people together, closer to each other.

I wish I had more occasions to listen to Indian classical music live in town.

[Markus]

That sounds wonderful, Lucy!

You know that India fascinates me. I admit I'm very much into Indian food but I'm also interested in the country and the philosophy and the religion. So I would have loved to join you at that concert.

Thanks a lot for the very vivid report. Was the concert well attended or were you on your own with the Indians?

Cheers!

Markus

[Lucy]

Then you will like this video too. In the beginning they compare music to cooking, then there are some video parts of the three masters playing their instruments.

We were about a few hundreds maybe? The place was full, and when Pt. Biswajit Roy Chowdhary came in and took a seat in the middle of the stage, he said that it was already a success. Some of the crowd were literally suffering, for example both of my neighbours, and some have escaped in the break. But most of the folks, me included, have survived.

[Jo Ta Erre]

Hi there;

I just came back from Oslo. Yesterday we went to the Dimmu Borgir´s "special" gig at the Spectrum with choir and orchestra.
I must confess that i was frightened with the icelandic volcano, because our flights were in great cancellation danger. Finally our trip went ok.
About the show, it was simply great. The band, the orchestra and the choir were just fantastic, without mistakes. Sound was really good, but we expected one or two pyrotechnical blasts...

The set list:
1. Xibir 2. Born Treacherous 3. Gateways 4. Dimmu Borgir (orchestral v.) 5. Dimmu Borgir (w/band) 6. Chess with the Abyss 7. Ritualist 8. A Jewel Traced Through Coal 9. Eradiction Instincts Defined 10. Vredesbyrd 11. Progenies of the Great Apocalypse 12. The Serpentine Offering 13. Fear and Wonder 14. Kings of the Carnival Creation 15. Puritania 16. Mourning Palace 17. Perfection or Vanity. Total one hour and 35 minutes.

Here you have a video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3yQItAj-2o&feature=related

...and in two weeks, Therion at Metallurgicales!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers!!!

p.d. congratulations to all Barça fans.

[Luth]

Oooooops, I missed this review! 

I'm glad you finally got there, and you enjoyed it so much, Jota! I know you were worried because of the volcanoe... and it's really good you finally were able to go to the concert! 

PS. Thanks!!!!!!! 

[Markus]

Hey folks,

thank you for sharing, JR! Lucky you... another journey, another great show! The video really is highly enjoyable. Must have been a wonderful night for you. Enjoy Therion, too!

Myself, I've been to the final concert of the Handel Festival last Sunday. It was definitely worth going - good choir and orchestra, great fireworks - but it wasn't my favourite performance for several reasons: They played the Dettingen Te Deum again, which they had played last year already. Was it some newly discovered arrangement by Brahms, performed here for the very first time? The program hinted at that but didn't really make it clear. I didn't like the accentuation on the Music for the Royal Fireworks and actually hated the fact that they played nothing but the overture, thus cheating me out of half that wonderful work. Oh, and they didn't have a cute soprano.

Also, the audience sucked big time. There was always someone chatting somewhere and during the separate pieces people would actually stand up and walk around and even stay up and keep talking when the conductor returned to start the next piece. I was short of killing the guy in front of me: He was tall, blocking my field of view. Chatting a lot and getting up after each piece, not returning until the first bars of the next piece had been played, singing along with the "Hallelujah" (and bad, for that matter!). And he was commenting the fireworks: "They've done it nicely this year. Oh, look! There will be at least one more because I've heard the boom of the launch. Ah, now there will be two more. Blah blabla, blabla blah!"

Still an enjoyable evening and still I'd like to see next year's show, too.

Cheers!

Markus

[The One]

Dream Theater (with Trivium as opener) live at Massey Hall in downtown Toronto... Indescribably awesome.
First, the venue was awesome. A very old-school theater, with nice seats and balconies and such; quite intimate, I could see everything on stage perfectly. I had to wait very little to get in, and had a great spot, only 9 rows away from the stage.
Trivium started off with... whatever they started with. They are a pretty energetic bunch of lads, but they aren't my cup of tea. Sure, they warmed up the part of the crowd that was in the venue at the time they were playing, but there was only a handful of people who were really digging their performance. I went to check out merch through the middle of their set. Don't think I missed much, because pretty much all I heard was fairly forgettable.
After half an hour of Trivium and half an hour of set up... It was the time... The venue was finally packed with a huge crowd of Dream Theater fans.
They opened with a pretty humorous projection of animated versions of the band members (John Myung as a bass-playing ninja, James LaBrie as a pirate, Mike Mangini as a genie on a hazy floating drum set, Jordan Rudess as a keyboard-playing wizard and John Petrucci as a Conan the Barbarian-esque God of thunder/guitar) and then the recording of the Tibetan throat singing kicked in... So Dream Theater began an epic 15 song set that lasted two hours. It was a good mixed bag with most songs from the new album and at least one song from each other album, minus "Falling into Infinity" (their infamous attempt to go mainstream) and their previous album "Black Clouds and Silver Linings".
Setlist went as follows:
1. Bridges in the Sky
2. These Walls
3. Build Me Up, Bring Me Down
4. Endless Sacrifice
(At around this point I had completely forgotten there was an opening act)
5. Mangini's Drum Solo
6. The Ytse Jam
7. The Silent Man
8. Beneath the Surface
9. Outcry
10. On the Backs of Angels
11. Forsaken
12. Through My Words
13. Fatal Tragedy
14. Breaking All Illusions
15. Under A Glass Moon
The light show and projections behind the band were pretty damn great too.
As an experience, it was very fun to sing along and headbang and all that other good business . The technicality and musicianship by each member was superb; I was looking at the fluidity of the left-hand motions of both Myung and Petrucci and was just thinking to myself "I wish my hand could go that fast, with such elegance, precision and awsomeness". On a funny side note, James LaBrie's mother was present in the audience, only a pair of rows behind me. When LaBrie announced this, the entire audience cheered for her. I screamed "You must be proud!".
Overall, great show.

EDIT: Here's the only half decent pic I managed to take with my phone's crappy camera

[Markus]

Hey Jorge,

glad you enjoyed the show so much! Sure, as a bass player you see a concert with different eyes.

Thank you for this great report!

Cheers!

Markus

[Markus]

Hey folks,

last night I went to a performance of "Rheingold", the first of the four Ring-operas by Wagner. Stage director was Hansgünther Heyme.

What an inspiring evening! Much easier, much more enjoyable than I had expected. I had thought of Wagner as heavy stuff, hard to digest. I thought the music was something for experts, something you have to learn to appreciate the hard way. What a nonsense! That may be true when you listen to a record, but in the opera itself it's just music that is part of the drama that unfolds on the stage. It sucked me in and kept me fascinated for the whole 150 minutes!

That may also be due to the play of the actors and the staging. Much more fun than I expected! The director had some joy in effects; he gave the Rheindaughters real water to play with, Loge real flames to conjure up. The Rheindaughters were pretty and seductive and joyful, Alberich was greasy, Fricka was a genuine wife, having domestic quarrels with the man she loves. And Loge... Loge was distanced, smart, cunning, manipulative, independent - surely the star of this evening.

There were lots of stuff in the staging that might have been scandals in former times: The disgusting gross advances of Alberich to the Rheindaughters, their Lesbian games, the depiction of Erda as a cheap, sad whore - but today it takes much more to annoy an audience, and somehow all of these things felt coherent and right to me.

I'm pretty glad that I was able to follow everything. Several years ago I would not have understood the libretto, which is in an archaic German, in form similar to the Edda texts. I would also not have known enough of Nordic mythology to understand several of the cues. Oh, and I would'nt have understood that Fasolt and Fafnir were each represented by three figures: The singer, a child, and a large cardboard man. But luckily I had stumbled into a short speech of the director right before the performance, and he explained that and other things.

Also it was an experience in itself to put myself into a suit and sit in one of the front rows like some rich and important guy.

So, all in all it was great evening and I'm looking forward to the other Ring-operas!

Cheers!

Markus

[Lucy]

Oooh, that's great, High Priest, I'm so glad that you liked it.

Early operas are easier to digest, but as you said, Wagner's heavyness is just a commonplace.
Aah, I better not to start to write excitedly about almost all of his operas, it would never end.

And I'm also a fan of modern opera interpretations.

[Luth]

I've never been in a opera... and I think it must be quite an experience! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much.  

Is there any picture of you in a suit?  

PS. Next Saturday... Orphaned Land!!! After long years without any gig near here, two years in a row. It's more than my heart can cope with!  (but it will survive  )

[Persephone]

Sounds like You had great fun :-) I have to admit that I am very much envious. :-) Even though going to opera is always hard task for me - 150 minutes. Pure hell. After first 20 minutes I start to feel uncomfy in chairs and I definitely need to visit a toilet  

Are there any stage photos on the website of the opera house? Would like to see them :-)

I agree that listening for hours only to the simple sound record is very hard to digest and after 2 or 3 hours it gets pretty boring But when You have a "screen" for it then it turns very different.

[Markus]

Hey folks,

yeah, fun is the right word. I went there, prepared for an evening of high culture - very profound and serious and intellectual. Then the Rheindaughters peeked above the edge of the stage and started to splash water very graciously, looking both very pretty and a little impish at the same time. That's when I realised that this was going to be fun as well.

Luth, yeah, it is an experience. Perhaps you should try it! Besides the music and the staging you might also like the opportunity to dress up. Talking of that: There aren't any pictures of me in the suit, but I'm going to wear it for Dad's birthday at the end of this month. I'll try to post a photo then.

Lucy, nice finding!

Kris, this is all I found on the homepage of the opera house (Alberich with the gold). But the whole Ring-project has its own homepage with some photos from "Rheingold". They also have a facebook page.

BTW, my favourite character was Loge! This surprised me because I despise the Loke of Nordic mythology. Yeah, he's smart and fun and everything, but when he killed Baldr he was going way too far, and especially what he did in the guise of Thökk deserves nothing but contempt. But the Loge in this opera was great.

Oh, there was a funny incident: The Rheingold was represented by a fisher's net with gold bars woven into it - the one you see in the photo. When the Rheindaughters were playing with it, one of them - the left one on this photo - got her necklace entangled in it. That was in the middle of their song, so she had to free the necklace while still singing her part. She tried to hide her desperate attempts in her big operatic gestures and managed the situation quite professionally, but still it was hilarious.

If I beehive I might get tickets for "Die Walküre" and "Siegfried" from Santa Claus.

Cheers!

Markus

[Luth]

Very soon I'll be able to make the concert review of the second show  (for me) of Orphaned Land. I'm soooo looking forward to it! 

[Markus]

Enjoy the show, my queen, and tell us all about it!

[The One]

So, over the past two weeks I went to two shows at the same venue, the Hard Luck Bar, in downtown Toronto. It's a small very intimate venue, and that helps since you get to talk to the musicians playing the show before and after they go on stage.

The first show was completely an unexpected thing for me, honestly. I was coming back from class and one of the people in my residence asked me if I liked Obscura and if I wanted to go to their show. I didn't even know the band at the time, but since I had nothing important to do that day, I went ahead and went with her. Obscura's brand of technical Death Metal was amazing. The support bands were good too, but I don't remember much... All I remember is beer, falling in love with a girl I met and that I had lots of fun... Oh, and the neck and back pain for the next 3 days.
I had the chance to talk to the members of Obscura after the show and buy one of their albums straight from their hands. Really nice chill guys, I wish all bands were like that and allowed you to meet them without charging extra. Then again. that could be because of the venue.

Anyway, Friday night I had planned to go to Unexpect with the girl I met at the Obscura show and a pair of her friends, plus the girl that ended up convincing me to the Obscura show. I remember the show well enough, so here goes...

The first opener band, In Exile, never showed up because they got stuck in traffic. The second opener, called Legions, played Power Metal; they're good musicians but unfortunately their music is pretty boring. The third opener, Hallows Die, were a really really good technical Death Metal group. Their bass player had a lot of good technique and played amazing stuff that I never pictured was really possible with a 4 string (although nowhere near as good as the bass player of Obscura, who plays on a fretless 6 string).

Unexpect themselves were amazing. Their lead singer, in her rather odd Gothic-esque dress, was a beauty both to behold and to hear. Guitars played amazingly... But the ones who truly stole the show were the violinist with his riffs that added to the whole oddity of the band and the bass player, headbanging with his dreadlocks and playing way beyond the ability of most normal human bass players - slapping technique on a 9 string.

I was way at the front the whole time when Unexpect played. It was an amazing show. And I headbanged, pretty much in unison, with the girl I fell in love with. I hope we go see Mastodon together next week.

[Markus]

Hey Jorge,

how come I haven't discovered this report any earlier? Shame on me!

Well, thank you for the well-written report - and the good news. Congrats, buddy!

Cheers!

Markus