nevermore_2003_09

» Nevermore 2003 09 19

Tourname: Enemies of Reality tour Europe 2003
Special guest: Arch Enemy
City: Gothenburg
Venue: Musikens Hus
Date: 19 Sep. 2003
Headline setlength: 90 min.
Special guest setlength: 45 min.

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Arch Enemy

This was the second time that I saw Arch Enemy, and now I can rest assure that the killer performance at Gates of Metal earlier this summer that totally blew me away wasn't a lucky strike, they simply are this great performing live. Well, since I knew what to expect I wasn't that surprised this time, but still it was a great show that the band delivered.

With Angela Gossow on stage Arch Enemy is a band that is great listening to as well as watching.
I still cant figure it out how that woman can sound the way that she does, she must have sold her soul to the devil or something in that area, she is truly amazing, she sings like she had more balls than many of the guys that are trying to sing with a growling voice. She is a force of pure energy on stage, convincingly screaming out the lyrics and furiously headbanging altogether with a stage-presence that makes her performance complete. And on top of that she also is a very attractive woman and that doesn't exactly make things worse.

The temperature in the small concert hall was high at the end of the show and it was apparent that many in the crowd was there solely to see Arch Enemy, and that made it easy for the band to get the crowd going. Even if the band besides Angela didn't seem to be quite as enthusiastic as her, they still gave us a solid performance, the Amott brothers guitarplaying is really something out of the ordinary and with those great guitarmelodies in the music it is hard to fail.

They started with the track Silent Wars from their latest album Anthems Of Rebellion and most of the songs were picked from that album along with Wages Of Sin, the two album they made since Angela stepped into the band. Of course we got to hear some older songs as well like Diva Satanica for example, but the highpoints for me were We Will Rise from Anthems and my all time Arch Enemy favourite song, Ravenous from Wages Of Sin.

Nevermore

Finally I got the chance to see Nevermore live, and it was surely worth the wait.
This was the first concert of the European part of the tour and even if they suffered from jetlag and there was some confusion at stage at some times, this was a night to remember.
They started with the tracks Enemies Of Reality and Never Purify from their latest album Enemies Of Reality and my first reaction wasn't how great the songs were but how terrible the sound was, how could the sound be so lousy when Arch Enemy had a great sound for their entire show. But when they reach to the third song Sea Of Possibilities that was no longer a problem, the sound was now just as great as earlier in the evening and the thrashing could begin.

Warrel Dane's has a fantastic voice and it comes out great live as well as on the albums, he has an variety in his voice and the ability to go from an aggressive style to sound almost fragile in the slower and more emotional parts of the music. Even if some fans shouted in vain that they wanted to hear old Sanctuary songs, we all got our share of thrash metal. They played a mix of songs from the entire career and even threw in the song In Memory from their mini-CD with the same title. Their strength on their albums is the variety in their dark, energetic progressive metal, but when you hear them live the thrash-element is the most apparent not least with The Seven Tongues Of God, Narcosynthesis and the cover of the old Simon & Garfunkel, Sound Of Silence, that was total shredding time. And if that wasn't thrash enough they had bring Steve Smyth with them from Testament and Dragonlord to fill out the second guitar on stage.

The great Nevermore melodies and beautiful guitar-parts came out best in the slower ones like, Tomorrow Turned Into Yesterday, Who Decides and The Heart Collector, the last one had also been given a new intro in shape of the calm bass intro from the track Dead Heart In A Dead World, a surprise moment that worked out pretty well.

This was a great concert even if the crowd was dropping out through the show, the hall that was packed when Arch Enemy finished was only half-full when Nevermore was done, I find that a bit strange, you couldn't have dragged me out of there even with wild horses. Many was of course there to see Arch Enemy since they was in their home-country and that was a really great concert, but I find that Nevermore was the better band this evening.

Nevermore is a band that plays for the fans, not least when Warrel invited those who wanted to come up on stage to perform some stage-diving, it looked dangerously at times when people furiously dived into the small crowd, but if you cant take the heat you shouldn't be standing at the front. He also tried to get at mosh-pit going but I think the Swedes are not crazy enough for that, but it could also have been that those in the front are to young to remember what a pit is.

And now that I've finally have seen Nevermore I can strike yet another band from my list of "bands I must see before I die".