Concert reviews

[Markus]

So I guess you kinda liked it? A little? At least you don't want your money back?

Glad to see that you had such a great evening, man! Thanks for your report.

Cheers!

Markus

[Agnes]

on 16th of May I was in No Mercy club in Warsaw at XIII Století concert.
The concert was absolutely amazing. I was in the first row, sitting on the scene
Firstly - we have been waiting for 0,5 hour in front of the club to get into, then 2 hours inside (some of people drinking beer, me - nothing ;])

So, there was a merchandise place where things costed:
T-shirts 60 PLN
Dogma album 80 PLN
Books by Petr Štěpán 50/100 PLN

SETLIST:
1. Intro (Gotika)
2. Fatherland
3. Into The Garden Of Delight
4. Kabarette Voltaire
5. Nevesta Temnot
6. Katakomby
7. Mesic lovce
8. Elizabeth
9. Justina
10. Prokleti domu slunecnic
11. Vendetta
12. Karneval
13. Nosferatu is dead
--
14. Mystery Ana
15. Bela Lugosi's Dead
---
16. Růze a kříz

It's quite hard for us, Poles, to understand Czech, to sing - it's even harder.. but.. the greatest moment of the show was singing Elizabeth with the band.. oh dear..

we were singing..even screaming this phrase:

Elizabeth - tvá krvavá cesta Bohu hříchem se zdá
Elizabeth - si hledaná milovaná

I was at the concert with my brother,2 guys from Polish Therion forum and my brother's friend.
Finally, the band arrived to Warsaw so I couldn't miss it! It was worth waiting in cold/oxygen-free area, 40 PLN for a ticket. I recommend XIII Století shows for everyone who has the opportunity to see them live!

ps. here are some pics from the club and the concert: http://www.no-mercy.pl/index.php?page=gallery_album&album=13&offset=1

the band have a mercedes car, black.. with 666 and Nosferatu name! my pics will come in 1-2 hours I hope.

[Markus]

Whoa, someone else who had a great night out. I'm very glad to hear that!

Cheers!

Markus

[Agnes]

here are the pics I took with my mobile.

The car:





And the band:

Petr Štěpán - vocalist and guitarist









The bassist Mirek "Palda" Paleček is here too.



The drummer - brother of Petr - Pavel Štěpán



and really nice keyboard player   - Jana Havlová

[The One]

Nice review Agnes! Seems like you had lots of fun!
But... I can't really see your pictures.

[Agnes]

check now - I changed the links

[The One]

They have a pretty nice car, and a pretty nice keyboard player I want one like that...
Also, take a close look at the license plate!

[saphira]

So... Last night was sooo damn AMAZING!    

First there were Bigelf and Unexpected. But the thing is that on net it said that at 18 they open the place up  and that at 20 it starts. I got there just like 5 min past 8 and just had a moment of time to squize myself in the first rows,and OPETH began!! I mean what the hell, they should write than that the concert starts at 18. Anyway we made our way by kicking and struggling somehow..

Opeth played for about one hour, this was way too short if you ask me. I was pleasently surprised to hear that our techinicians didn't screw up the sound! This happens quite commonly here. They played Watershed album. Heir Apparent, Hessian Peel (OMG this song sounded sooo great!!), Porcelain heart, The Lotus Eater,Coil,  Reverie/ Harlequin Forest,April Ethereal, they ended up with Hex Omega. It was sweet and short. This is not the correct order of the songs, funny I can't remember which song was opening.. like it just fled out of my mind.. silly me..
During their performance there came up a guy dressed up in black cloak and with plastic mask of a skull, throwing around popcorn and smth, I couldn't see what exactly ( I suspect Portnoy  ).  Mikael started to laugh and so did every one else! At the end the guy came back with some pink sprey or smth and Mikael and Fredrik had their hair full of it!  

Than they ended, people started screaming "We want more", but they didn't come back because the timing was very precise. They prepared the stage for Dream Theater. We had to wait for about 20 min.. or maybe less to me it seemed eternity.. so about 21:40 DT started. The black curtain falling to the floor and them starting to play A Nightmare to Remember, just the song I wished they would play first! This is when the crawd finally  got wild!! They played also A Rite Of Passage ( mindblowing   ), Wither, The Shattered Fortress, The Count Of Tuscany, I LOVE them for playing Erotomania!! A Mind beside Itself,In the name of God, Voices, Hollow Years (Thank you, DT!),  I can't remember them all. All together ended at about half past 23.. This was really such a short concert. Everyone said that they could play much more. Funny to see Petrucci wearing Burzum T-shirt, than we realized it is not "R" but "L"  Rudess learned to play Na Golici! We were all "waaaaa!!" I hope that someone got that on video

Anyway I found some videos on youtube, I don't have my own, because the sound was horrible. Even this ones are some bad quality, but better than nothing.
Unexpect (too bad I missed them) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtmNPv_jvVo

You have to see this! In the middle of the concert Halloween dance Party! I laughed my ass off!!  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQYrnxpd1bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S75xpWkiE9Y


Spaghetti from a tin can : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNl3u5WB0xQ

What a beginning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nv_a2Xlr8Q

The Count Of Tuscany: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL7YgxSz6BA
                                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-3sbPM-sNA
                                          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWeYQfRR2LY

A Rite Of Passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgaujPSETpg
                          
In The Name Of God: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffh3wAaZEis

A taste of the crowd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cQf3sJI-5Q







All in all a night to remember!      

[The One]

Hey Pol, what can I say?
I AM JEALOUS!
But I'm happy you had a good night. And DT played some of my favorites... Count of Tuscany and the Mind Beside Itself suite!

[Penny lane]

omg!! hahaha!! the halloween dance is so funny!! ah and a really good setlist from DT! pity that opeth had a smaller set..im glad you had fun

[Aluqak]

Something like a month ago I went to my very last show in Madrid (at least in a while). We had The Ordher , Fleshgod Apocalypse, Vader, and Marduk in the menu.
I only got to hear the last three songs from the first band. They sounded more than OK for an opening band. The night looked promising.
Then I got mystified by the second band. How such a technically rich band can be so boring? People never get into it, and I wasn't the exception. The Bosnia-Spain football game shown in the screens was far more entertaining.
Then, the real stuff begun. Vader hit the stage and they delivered a total blast... as usual. These guys are simply amazing live. The 20euros I spent were more than justified, and we still had Marduk to go. They started a little bit delayed, but they went directly for the throat as usual... and as usual for a black metal band, they did a rather short show, with not many interactions with the crowd. Cold as ice, and heavy as hell.
All in all, a good metal night that will make me remember Madrid with an evil smile in my face .

[Loke]

  well im just too drunk to extend but Moonspell in Mexico was awesome , Tiamat mmm more or less,

In march , metallica again!!


  yo yo yo

[Markus]

Not exactly metal, but very enjoyable: I was to a Christmas concert by Gunter Emmerlich, a classical bass-singer who is pretty famous in Eastern Germany, which took place in a Gothic church that is used as concert hall these days.

The setlist was much after my taste. I was afraid of some scary "volkstümlicher Schlager", of cheap music for the aging masses. But it was a mostly classical selection with tunes by Händel, Mozart, Bach and less-known componists. In between Emmerlich read out short texts and poems all around Christmas, which were often touching and often very amusing.

Emmerlich sang very well, but in contrast to my expectation he did not dominate the evening. There was also a sopranist named Jeanne Pascale Schulze, the concert-hall-choir from Halle, and they were accompanied by a cello, an organ and a trumpet. They played and sang without microphones; in the tenth row we heard them perfectly well but I don't know how it was in the last rows.

The choir was ok, but not great. They did well but to me they could have been a bit more precise in their timing and a bit more emotional here and there. Schulze, however, made more than up for this. She was impressive both vocally and visually, if I may say so. (Seems I have a thing for sopranists. ) In "Alleluja" by Gian Francesco de Majo she could show off.

All in all a very pleasurable evening!

Cheers!

Markus

[Jo Ta Erre]

Yesterday seen SAMAEL and PARADISE LOST in Bilbao. It was a really good show. Very cold outside, but burning inside the venue. SAMAEL started with not very good sound, a pity because they shot "Rain" as second song. After four or five songs, sound got better. They mixed music with images on a big screen they had on stage. Samael played stuff from their new album "Above", and classics like "Slavocracy", "Solar Soul", "Into the Pentagram" in 45 minutes. Too short for me. Maybe next time.
Fifth or sixth time i´ve seen Paradise Lost. Greg Mackintosh didn´t come yesterday. His father´s illness forced him to leave the tour, and a substitute plays his guitar parts live. Not an easy job, because Mackintosh makes the guitar solos, and has a very particular sound. Milly Evans, did a very very good job. He made the solos as Mackintosh does, and closing the eyes, maybe you could think that Greg Mackintosh himself was the guy at guitar. Good sound, new songs and classics ("Pity the Sadness", "Eternal", "One Second", "The Last Time"...), but Nick Holmes´ voice...We can understand that they toured already for a month, playing almost every day, that voice suffers, but it´s not new thing. Sometimes seemed that from the control desk purposely lowered the volume of microphone, not to notice too that he was not singing well. About 75-80 minutes after starting, the show finished, how could it be otherwise, with "Say Just Words".
A very good evening.

[Markus]

Hi folks,

I have just returned from Happy Birthday, Händel 2010. My parents had given me a ticket for row 10 - which turned out to be third row, so I was sitting right in front of the orchestra and the soloists. The choir was made up of over 400 singers from different countries. Many were Germans, of course, but there were singers from other European countries and even some from the USA and from Japan. Sounds like something NTSMS would do.

It was simply great. They played and sang without any amplification, so it wasn't very loud, but the sound was very clear and transparent. I was amazed how well all these different choirs worked together, especially considering the fact that they must have had only few rehearsals together.

At first I was a bit disappointed by the lack of power in the voice of the tenor, though he made up for that later on. Only thing that kept disturbing me about him was his lisp. The bass was amazing - a very powerful voice and a very dramatic expression. The same can be said for the soprano, and additionally she looked exciting - though not very oratoriumesque. If you had a piece with a seductive Serpent role she would be the perfect fit. (Yeah, me and sopranists. )

I do wish they had taken some pieces a bit slower. Choruses like "Glory to God" or "For unto us a Child is Born" or an aria like "The People that Walked" would have sounded more majestic had they not rushed through them like they did. The "Hallelujah" was the best I've ever heard, though - brilliant, powerful and majestic. You could see that it moved the soloists as well.

After the final chorus the received frenetic applause which turned into standing ovations very quickly. As encore they played "Hallelujah" once more, this time inviting the audience to sing along.

All in all there was very little I would have wanted different, so this concert was a 9.5/10.

Cheers!

Markus

[Aluqak]

You know MArkus, this is one of the things I miss the most about Europe. Man, you have made me jealous again.

[Markus]

Thank you, Alu!

Is it really hard to find a somewhat decent classical concert over there?

Cheers!

Markus

[Aluqak]

Yes and no, Markus. We have some good symphonic orchestras and chamber groups, but the problem is the amount of concerts and the people that go to those concerts. Here, the offer is not as important as in Europe, and the few big important concerts that we have become more a jet-set exhibition than a real musical experience. The last time I went to one of those in this side of the pond was in Québec City, when they local symphonic joined forces with other orchestras of the province and played Mahler's 8th symphony. I was sitting just behind the brasses and next to the chorus and the experience was close to perfection. It wasn't perfect because some people near me arrived late. They were allowed to get in (apparently they "very important people how were to busy to get on time to a show on a Saturday evening") and disturbed half the audience in order to get to their places. Of course they couldn't do it quietly and many murdering instincts, including my own, got awaken. While in Europe, I went to classical shows in four or five occasions, including one during the Beethoven festival in Bonn, and it was completely different. People know how to behave (most of them anyway), and you always have a next time if you miss something important or you have a bad experience. But what the heck, you don't have all those pyramids, crazy folklore and nice weather that have here ( ), so I guess that compensates quiet well for the classical concerts.

[Markus]

Hey Alu,

I really wasn't aware of that, but now you mention it... You know, to me classical concerts are always available. There's at least one offered every week, probably much more. I could go to one whenever I want to - hence I go too rarely. Strange how one tends not to appreciate the things one always has at hand...

But you can have your murder instincts awoken in Europe as well. Chances are that every now and then you have some idiots talking near you during the show. If possible I stare at them, trying to make them drop dead. That hasn't worked yet (though I keep practicing), but usually it silences them after a while.

But what the heck, you don't have all those pyramids, crazy folklore and nice weather that have here ( ), so I guess that compensates quiet well for the classical concerts.

Well, we have bronze-age solar observatories instead, older than some of the Egyptian pyramids and way older than yours. But perhaps you could organise a solar eclipse over there so I can get to see that doubtlessly fascinating country.

Cheers!

Markus

[Aluqak]

perhaps you could organise a solar eclipse over there so I can get to see that doubtlessly fascinating country.

I'm on it man! I'll let you know when I find a proper date for that.