Opeth
September 11th, 2005
013, Tilburg, The Netherlands
By
"Wob"
After missing several occasions to see this great Swedish band live, it was
a real treat to finally see them, on my birthday! Yep...9-11!
Supportband was Extol. This Norwegian band has been around since 1994 and
released their debut in 1998.
Their music which was pretty loud and sounded a bit proggy had some nice
moments (some atmospheric parts and a few breaks that reminded me of Rush)
but they could not convince me to rush off to the merch.stand to buy one of
their albums.
The screams of Peter Espevoll were a bit annoying but the drummer made it
worth listening after all.
Opeth started off with one of the tracks off the brand new Ghost
Reveries album, The Baying Of The Hounds. Nice song with stonerrock/70's
rock-like beginning (The keyboardpart reminds me a bit of Uriah heep).
Micheal Åkerfeldt experienced some technical (guitar) problems during this
song but after that it was plain sailing the whole concert through.
Perfect sound, Åkerfeldt's voice was in topshape, his grunts sounded really
powerfull and deep and also the clean vocals stood out really well.
Just like Dan Swano, his Edge of sanity/Nightingale/( former?-)Bloodbath
colleague, Åkerfeldt has one of the best grunts as well as one of the most
beautifull clean voices i know.
Speaking of deathmetalband Bloodbath, their drummer Martin Axenroth was
replacing Martin Lopez because of his illness (Strapping young lad-giant
Gene Hoglan replaced Lopez during the American tour).
The new album was released two weeks earlier ( in Europe ) so they didn't do
a lot of new songs yet.
The mighty Grand Conjuration was the other one, later on. During this really evil song (especially the calmer parts, breathtaking!) they made everyone put both their arms up making 'the sign of the devil'.
Unfortunately no Ghost Of Perdition this evening. They will probably play more new songs when they return in December.
Opeth played songs from most of their 8 albums ( except the first two ).
Mostly heavy stuff like Deliverance, The Drapery Falls, When and
Blackwater Park (those last 2 songs are not played very often) passed
and ofcourse some 'easy listening' tracks In My Time Of Need and To Rid
The Disease both from the beautiful Damnation album and my personal
favourite Face Of Melinda.
I was very disapointed they only did one encore (the inevitable Demon Of
The Fall) especially considering the fact that Åkerfeldt spend a lot of
time - a bit too much time - talking and joking in between the songs!
Fortunenately not in such an arrogant way as he did with Bloodbath on Wacken
Open air this summer and sometimes he was actually pretty funny, but....
they could have let some more music doing the talking instead.
But, after seeing them live for the first time : I was very impressed.
Great musicians, great songs and a great sound!
Setlist
The Baying Of The Hounds
When
Deliverance
In My Time Of Need
To Rid The Disease
The Drapery Falls
The Grand Conjuration
Face Of Melinda
Blackwater Park
Demon Of The Fall
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