London gig - who's going?

I'm not chitty...I don't even remotely look like him actually...but the venue regulations were defintely 'chitty'! No pictures allowed! People were being told off by security everytime they tried to make pictures. The gig was fantastic! Short but fantastic. I think Kamelot were a bit scared of Firewind's rising popularity so gave them very limited stage space. As Apollo said: "We are Firewind and we're dangerous!" I think they proved to be more popular than Kamelot. They got themselves the loudest cheer when Apollo asked the crowd to cheer for Forever Slave, Kamelot and Firewind (he asked for a small cheer for Firewind and got the loudest). The band seemed to be taken aback by the reaction. There were a lot of Firewind fans in the audience.

I was standing right in front of Mr. Bob Katsionis. The band looked and sounded great...even though the sound could have been better. The set list from memory was as follows:

Into The Fire
Mercenary Man
Head Up High
Falling To Pieces
Silent Code
Warrior

I'm not sure if it's all there. I stayed a bit for Kamelot but found them to be relatively boring after Firewind. Firewind was so much more powerful and energetic. I met Bob later at the merchandise booth and we talked a bit about Firewind and his solo projects and I told him how much I loved 'Birth Of The Sun'. He gladly signed my stuff and posed for pictures with me.

I bought myself a Premonition and Allegiance t-shirt. Firewind artwork is gorgeous! Whilst we were in the queue we were treated by Century Media staff to a promo pack with included merchandise from various bands on their catalogue but more interestingly was included in the pack was the Mercenary Man single and Firewind stickers!!!! Amazing given that the single is not available outside Greece! I'll post pictures of them later.

Also for Firewind collectors I would recommend you buy the latest issue of Power Play magazine as the inside cover includes an amazing advert of Gus G! Rumour has it that Firewind will be doing a headlining tour in September with Power Quest! I'm looking forward to that.

Last night was a short but amazing gig that I'm not ready to forget so soon.
 
I have the setlist here:

Into The Fire
Head Up High
I Am The Anger
Destination Forever (it's scored out and they didn't play this one)
Circle of Life
My Loneliness (scored out and not played)
The SIlent Code
Warrior
Till The End of Time (scored out, not played).
Falling To Pieces
Mercenary Man


But yeah. It was awesome. Gig opened hella early, seen Forever Slave's set. Would have been amazing if the girls vocals were stronger but overall not that impressed. But I think I was just hyped about seeing Firewind. Met forgottenglory :p Had a wee bit of banter before Firewind.

Firewind themselves were amazing. They are dangerous XD

They were on top form. The only thing I noticed was Apollo coming in too early with the vocals for Head Up High! But I can't even go into detail. They were just amazing. Apollo's hair is getting quite long too ^_^


There was no iBob t-shirt however which made me sad. Haha.


I loved that they played Warrior! Fucking AMAZING!


I could tell that not many people knew the songs Firewind were playing but they loved them anyway! Alan bought a HEAP of merch! Forgottenglory very kindly gave me his Bob pick (love ye man!) and I caught Bob's towel. And I got a setlist. Very happy with that! Haha.

So after the set we watched some of Kamelot but forgottenglory is right...I just couldn't watch them after the powerful performance from Firewind! They are so pretentious aswell!!!!! Khan with his massive fucking jacket when it's like 100 degrees! Then he took it off eventually to reveal a shirt with a longsleeve under it *sigh*! He kept spitting aswell....so I moved from the front row.

We saw Herman Li at the gig aswell =/ But yeah, we met Bob and talked and I showed him my tattoo. He was like :OMG: "OMFG NO WAY! IS THAT REAL!>?!???!??!?!?W>?£?"!£>1" and I was like...yeah. He wanted to take a picture, I was all embarrassed >.<


After the gig finished we got kicked out. But not before I met HANNAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 She said she was telling everyone how much she loved us (me and Al) lol!

Met the guys from Firewind...well, Apollo, Gus, Petros and Mark. Talked to them all. They all ended up seeing my tattoo. Apollo took another picture ¬_¬ And Petros was holding my leg for so long I almost fell over!

After hanging about for about 10 minutes Apollo invited us for food. So me, Alan, Apollo, Gus, Petros, Mark and a Belgian man named Eric went to a kebab place. After eating our kebabs Alan, Gus and Eric sat and talked about their cats and showed each other pictures on their phones. Bunch of saddos!!!! After hanging about another wee while we went back to our hostel bidding Firewind goodnight and saying we'd see them tomorrow ^_^



I had fun. Lots of fun. More fun tonight with Katie and Emy!!!!!!



xx Kirsty
 
Goddamn.

Thanks heaps for the reviews, now youve made me even more upset that theres no Aussie tour on the horizon :(
 
Holy shit. I hope they play Destination Forever (I know, I've seen it quite a few times now live but it's still my favourite Firewind song) and My Loneliness at the Milan gig. Kirsty! Tell the guys that please ;) and thanks.

oh and of course, not to sacrifice Warrior!
 
So naturally Firewind were bloody excellent, despite rubbish sound (is it me or did Forever Slave have better sound than Firewind?), Apollo struggling with the high notes on Warrior, and Bob's guitar not working properly. At the beginning of Into the Fire, when Gus plays the first solo, it really hit me that he's a bloody amazing guitarist, which I feel silly about saying because it seems like such a stupidly obvious thing to say on a Firewind discussion board (and because I've heard him more than enough times on studio recordings and even seen Firewind live once before to know that he's rather good on the ol' electric banjo). Shame their set was so short but Kamelot were headlining so what did I expect, eh?

I'm afraid I pulled a seriously epic fail while queuing before the gig by having four out of five members of Firewind walk by me and not getting a single bloody autograph (well, I'm not sure if Petros walked past me or not, he seemed to have grown rather a large beard)! I always bottle it when trying to get rock stars' autographs.

Other queuing incidents of note include two girls physically dragging me to the tour bus to meet the bands, my left leg going completely numb after getting up from the floor to go to the toilet (and by the way, public toilets are very conveniently located by the venue so you can queue all day for a gig with one less thing to worry about), and a rude joke about Oliver Palotai, which has probably been repeated 1000 times the world over before I first thought of it, and wasn't really funny anyway. And, of course, I loved the goody bag, although it seemed strange that they should put an old Dream Evil poster from the Dragonslayer days in it rather than, say a Firewind poster? While in the queue I also had a nice chat with Anupam/ForgottenGlory/Chity/whatever the bloody hell we're calling you this week! It was good to see you again. Will I be seeing you again next week at Ace Frehley and Tigertailz?
 
Well...


Wolverhampton last night. Jesus. I...I can't even...wow.



We bailed after Firewinds set to the bar where we were greeted by Mark and Bob. Hung out with them til the end of the Kamelot set and then...guess who was on the tour bus?


Oh yeah. Me, Ahlaaaaaaaaaan, KatieForce and Emy!

It was the EPICOME OF METAL!

FUCK YEAH. Seriously. Had good banter then we got kicked off cos they have to drive to Amsterdam! LOL! I'm getting a flight but its fucking delayed by an hour. RAGIN. Hence paying like fucking £1 per 10 mins for internet!!!!!!


I'm glad I type fast!


Also, it fucking snowed! In Wolverhampton like full on snow! Woke up this morning and there was at least 4-5 inches of snow outside. I was like O_________O SNOWMANS!!!!! But we didn't have time :(



But yeah. They played Destination Forever last night. No Warrior. They also played Between Heaven and Hell! The setlist was waaaay different!



xx Kirsty
 
What was the full set-list for last night? i'm new to Firewind, and was very impressed, so would like to know what they played. Cheers.
 
It's been at least five minutes since the gig, so I've forgotten most of it :p

Insanity was near the start.
Between Heaven and Hell was the last song.
Destination Forever, Falling To Pieces and I Am The Anger were in there somewhere.
Circle of Life, Head Up High and Mercenary Man off the new album.

That might actually have been the whole set, although not in the right order. Which would be damn impressive for my memory :p
 
ok that's excellent news and excellent reviews people!!

i've fucking missed watching a firewind concert and you only make it worse!

thanks again all of you for the live coverage, keep it up and take as many photos and videos as you can!! lucky guys...

and yes, gus g. said in a greek magazine interview that they'll make a european headline tour in september.
 
I could tell that not many people knew the songs Firewind were playing but they loved them anyway! Alan bought a HEAP of merch! Forgottenglory very kindly gave me his Bob pick (love ye man!)

Well, for a start Bob did not intend to give me the pic, given that he was aiming it at somebody else. It just happened that it landed on my arm. I only heard of Firewind and became a fan about a month ago whilst you've been a fan for far longer than that (from the beginning?). So I reckoned, you deserved it more than I did. That was some quick thinking wasn't it?!

I bought a Premonition and Insanity t-shirt too. The artwork is too good to resist. The t-shirt shipped with the Nuclear Blast order pales in comparison.
 
I am now the proud owner of all things firewind. I've got all their t shirt (sept the alleigance one. but the insanity one is better.)