Ok, here is my review of yesterday's show in Hamburg, let's see if I can get it together... this is gonna be long I think:
Me and two mates arrived at 7:45 pm at the "Schlachthof", the venue where Opeth was to play. Not a big venue, but a decent one IMO.
The first thing I noticed was that there were only hoods in XL size left, so I couldn't get myself one. Damn.
Madder Mortem started playing right at 8 pm and I got myself a nice position at the front, on the right side. They played their songs really well but IMO lacked a little bit of energy and stage presence.
But I enjoyed their songs, most of them I had already heard before.
Then it was time for Opeth and the room actually got quite full.
To sum up their performance: They were awesome!
Here's the setlist:
1. The Leper Affinity
2. Advent
3. Deliverance
4. Godhead's Lament
5. The Drapery Falls
6. Credence
7. Serenity Painted Death!!!!!!
8. A Fair Judgement
9. Encore: Demon of the Fall
Yes, they really played two songs from Still Life! My greatest wish came true!!!
Well, I was totally hoping for Serenity Painted Death - when Mikael announced the first song from Still Life I was shouting "Serenity Painted Death" as loud as I could, but they started to play Godhead's Lament.
I was a tiny little bit disappointed (but really only a little bit because Godhead's Lament was awesome and one of my favs too), but when Mikael announced that they would play "another song from the Still Life album" I went nuts.
And the whole crowd with me. I had no idea how fucking brutal and powerful that song is live.
Other highlights for me were Advent, because it sounded so much better than on the album, and Deliverance for the same reason.
And of course Demon of the Fall, no explanation needed. (Mikael:" I want to see some insanity down there!")
They were very tight and visibly enjoyed playing.
I couldn't hear any noticable playing mistakes.
However, they had to retune their guitars (and the bass too) after almost every song. Especially Mikael's guitar seemed to go out of tune very quickly, half-way into each song it seemed to be too low. And I could always see it on his face when he noticed it himself, he looked like this:
So much to Opeth not downtuning...
And they played some songs faster, I especially noticed it during Deliverance (the ending was killer!), while during A Fair Judgement Mikael played the acoustic part slower than on the album.
The sound was great IMO, but where I was standing (front row to the right, in front of Mendez) the mix of course wasn't that great. I could barely hear Peter playing; and especially during the first two songs I could barely hear Mikael's vocals. But after Advent the vocals got louder.
And they sounded really great and powerful.
After 1 1/2 hours the show was over and the band said goodbye. I got one of Martin Lopez' drumsticks - Yeehaw!!! - and got to shake all band members hands.
When I shook Mikael's I kept shouting: "Please give me a plectrum"... and he went back to the mic stand and brought me one! Very cool of him IMO.
After the show me and my mates waited at the tourbus for half an hour and watched the roadies load all the equipment into the trailer.
Unfortunately the guys didn't come out while we were there, so we left because we were fucking hungry.
Pheeww, that's it. The show was definitely a very great experience for me and one of the best shows I've seen, too.
Hm, did anybody read the whole rant above!?
