Hi folks,
so last night I went to the Therion anniversary show in Glauchau. To make it short: There were a few minor flaws. The sound wasn't always perfect, and both Piotr and Thomas were unsure with some of the lyrics. And yes, I did miss the extra spice that Mats used to bring into the band. But despite all that Therion have once more seriously topped themselves.
First there was a support band named "The Vision Bleak". Admittedly I had never heard of them before, but I liked their performance. Their singer was hard to hear at times - sound not mixed well, probably due to Therion having main importance - but they did play a decent metal that would be worth a concert of its own and that got us warm. But honestly I was also thankful that they played for half an hour only, even though I liked them; I had come for Therion, after all. Good and short playing - what else can you ask from a support band?
The Vision Bleak played in the front part of the stage, in front of two black curtains with their band logo hiding the rest of the stage. Between and above them you could already see the Therion backdrop from the GK-tour (Therion - 1987 - 2007). After the support act, when their instruments were brought from the stage, these curtains were rolled up. That caused a lot of ooohhhs and aaaahs because it revealed two huge black candles, Petter's drum set to the left - and a horror-movie-style organ on the right with several keyboards, the largest one ergonomically round. Ah well, even the stage technicians were wearing monk's robes!
What hit us next were
two shows of Therion in a row. The first one was opened with Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah. The intro was followed by immediate headbanging. On stage were Christofer, Kristian, Johan, Petter, Snowy, Thomas, the keyboarder (who did a fine job on later solos), Lori, two female background singers and a belly dancer. Lucy, you'll love that part! The belly dancer was swirling on the stage with a golden veil, thus waving nice fresh air to us in the middle of the first row.
Fine as she looked, she was outshined by Lori... The background singers were in the foreground, each chained to a post at the side of the stage. Both were wearing animal masks over their head - one a Baphomet, on an elk.
When Christofer promised us some special stage ideas for "Wisdom and the Cage" you could already guess what would happen, and indeed: Mrs. Elk and Madame Baphomet, once released, dragged Snowy to a medieval pillory and locked him in, with a micro right in front of his face. While he was singing about his heavy chains they hit him with a birch. Lori climbed the left side of the stage and sang her "Sooophiiiiaaaaaa...." in full light, until Thomas drove away the nasty animals and freed Snowy. In fact the whole show was full of stage acting like that, but this was one of the finest examples.
Then there was "Kali Yuga" with Piotr's first appearance.
After pt. I and II something strange and almost scary happened: I stopped singing along because I didn't know the lyrics.
My first impression: It's a pretty driving song with some calmer passages towards the end and some catchy melodies. The melodies seemed a bit Indian-inspired to me, which is very fine because the lyrics are Hindu-related.
Piotr was standing pretty still and looked a bit uncomfortable to me - I don't know if that meant anything or if that's just his way. However, it was great to hear him. Admittedly, he did screw up the first chorus of "Lemuria", but that didn't really spoil the great performance of that song. The main performers had sat down on the stage, some of them with acoustic guitars, and then they played and sang. Oh, what an atmosphere!
"Via Nocturna" saw some nice keyboard solos, and this first part ended with "Ginnungagap". Nah, that was enough stuff for a show of its own! 12 songs - or 14 if you count each part of "Kali Yuga" separately. A short break followed.
Then the second show began - in the one and only to begin a Theli-show: While the Prelude was playing the performers entered the stage one by one, and then it went "BAM-BAM: Powers of Thagirion - Watch the great beast to be!" Wow... Just another amazing show! They really played the whole album, including the smaller instrumental tunes. And some of the songs were varied a bit from the album version - but the same is valid for the first part of the concert. "The Siren of the Woods" came with some more big theatre playing and drove tears to one eye or another. Too bad that Thomas screwed up the lyrics, else this would have been perfect.
After the "Grand Finale" - complete with black flags as last February - they played "Adulruna" as if it was an encore. Hey, it's a 14-minutes-piece that must have taken big efforts to study and the tour is half named after it, so it wasn't difficult to squeeze this one out of the band.
Finally, "Summernight City" came as a "Thank you!" to the audience. By then, approximately two and a half hour of Therion were over. Great show, really - go and see it!
After the show we did not manage to talk a lot to Christofer; he felt pretty bad and disappeared in the bus pretty quickly. I did get my Theli-booklet signed, though - also by Snowy, the Niemanns and even by Piotr. When I asked Piotr for an autograph he asked me if it was an album that he played on. "Sure", I said, "it's Theli - that's why I brought it." He reminded me that he also played drums on Theli, but I think that it's mainly his unique voice that we love him for. I also told him how great I found it that he joined the tour, and he told me that Christofer had asked him for that so that the people could hear the songs with the original voice. When I saw the two of them on stage I had the impression that they were quite happy to meet again.
Well, after those short talks and autograph collecting at the tour bus (it's the bigger, gray one) we left for home, and I was in bed at half past five. Great evening, indeed!
Cheers!
Markus
