inflames_2012_05

» In Flames 2012 05 02

Reviewed by Tobbe
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Special guest: Port Noir
City: Stockholm, Sweden
Venue: Debaser Slussen
Date: 02 May 2012
In Flames set length: 100 minutes

In Flames

The final gig on In Flames' Nordic tour. Nowadays they play larger venues throughout Europe, but in celebration to the club scene, they played 19 gigs on clubs and in smaller venues in 24 days, passing through Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. Tonight's gig was held at Debaser Slussen, a rock club located on the southern berth of Old Town, and with a capacity of 500, this gig sold out within a matter of minutes.

Upon the very first chords and actually even before the lights went down, it was evident that this venue was packed to the maximum. Overcrowded I would say, as I had a hard time to even see the band during the first third of the set. Eventually I found a good spot, but since the stage floor is only two feet tall, I could only see the band from the chest and up. It's a rock club however and many visitors had it worse than I had.

Two killer songs, Embody The Invisible and Bullet Ride, opened the set and immediately noticeable was the low volume. For the first ten minutes it felt like being at home looking at a giant screen. Two songs later the volume was turned up to a satisfying level and also it was getting hot inside the venue, as the lack of, or not fully functional, air conditioning was evident.

Within the next ninety minutes, lead vocalist Anders Fridén, brought up at least four persons from the floor on stage, in order to film the crowd and the band and upload in on YouTube. It all started with him stating that everybody should put their cameras and cell phones down and just focus on the show instead. Someone out there was going to record it anyway, so watch it later on the internet, he said. This was a cool move the first two times, but later it bored me and it also made the performance lose continuity, as the breaks became too long.

With a set of songs from Colony and forwards, most people there seemed to agree with the choice of setlist. Nowadays most In Flames fans prefer their later work, or at least music from the last decade or so, before their old death metal, which is easily figured out just by looking at their sales figures and their number of concertgoers. Five songs each from Reroute To Remain and latest album, Sounds Of A Playground Fading, were played. Add three from Clay Man and there are two thirds of the set.

Almost all songs went down well, but a couple of the new songs sounded too mechanical with their sound effects. Good studio songs, but not that good tonight. It's the direction to where In Flames has headed for years now and it doesn't affect the quality of their albums and as long as they keep getting more popular, why should they not continue their path away from classic death metal?

On this small stage with limited space, the charismatic frontman took up too much room and the rest of the band looked a bit like bystanders. As I mentioned earlier, there were too many people in the club, to really get a chance to have somewhat of a clear view. Even if the band's performance was good, the event as a whole was not equally good, even if experiences like this are cool and a treat to their fans. With about one hundred less tickets sold, this could have been awesome and could have totally ruled, but unfortunately that was not the case tonight. So when I sum this up, I can hand out no more than 5 chalices for this event.

Performance: 5 chalices of 10
Stage sound: 7 chalices of 10
Best: System
Worst: Too crowded

Setlist:

Intro
Embody The Invisible
Bullet Ride
Trigger
Crawl Through Knives
The Quiet Place
Where The Dead Ships Dwell
Egonomic
Clay Man
Liberation
Cloud Connected
Drifter
System
Fear Is The Weakness
Ropes
Only For The Weak
Deliver Us
The Mirror's Truth
Take This Life
My Sweet Shadow