[Octillus]

Katatonia with Swallow the Sun and Orphaned Land.

Holy shit, I'm not a huge Katatonia fan but I do love Viva Emptiness, and they fucking killed. The venue I was in was a very small one, pretty much a bar with a tiny stage and 300 people jammed in there sweating and being floored by how amazingly badass they were playing.

Swallow the Sun was cool but entirely bereft of personality, whilst Orphaned Land were pretty damn cool in their own right (I'd like to see what they could do with their full band and a longer set.) I got to talk to the Orphaned Land cats, and I guess they're coming back around next year, which is super.


But seriously, Katatonia had huge sing alongs, so much energy and atmosphere, holy fuck. If I weren't seeing Dev in a couple weeks it'd be show of the year for me for sure and I almost didn't make it in.

Goldfrapp, they were fucking amazing as usual, sounded absolutely bloody massive

Can't believe how perfectly she sings live too, note-perfect but with little improvs to let you know she's not miming

Saw Jonsi at the same festival, he was wicked as well. Not as epic as Sigur Rós but wonderful nonetheless

Infected Mushroom (and 4 hours of random DJs playing hard trance shit)

Due to some certain personal circumstances, it could've been better, but the concert, performance and sound all in all was awesome. Got a few snapshots and vids.

[youtube]4FL-SsZrFyI[/youtube]

October 10, 2010: Oceansize
Support act Vessels weren't very interesting, bass was much too loud and obscured any musical attempts by other band members.
Oceansize themselves were damn tight, lots of new songs (would rather have had some oldies maybe?). I heard lots of complaints afterwards that it was too loud but hey, I have good ear plugs Still good after seeing them 8 times or so. Gotta love Music For A Nurse and Ornament/The Last Wrongs. Mark Heron is a beast with a silly drumkit.

October 14, 2010: Anathema
First support act was Petter Carlsen, damn talented bloke with a guitar. Second support act was Lost Distance Calling, pretty standard post rock band that seemed a bit out of place supporting Anathema.
Main act was grrreat. Started off with some golden oldies, then played all of We're Here Because We're Here, then 4 songs encore. That's what I call value for money, even though it was a pretty expensive gig. Danny seemed in control of the band but only sang an acoustic version of Are You There?

Next up:
October 21, 2010: Crippled Black Phoenix
October 26, 2010: Tracy Bonham
October 28, 2010: Shining (The Norwegian kind with the saxophone)
November 7, 2010: 65daysofstatic
November 24, 2010: Jonsi
November 24, 2010: Olafur Arnalds

Damn straight.

Monday: Biffy Clyro

They were great. Simon did alot of screaming in the first three songs, but the atmosphere amongst the band was great. They also like to completely rape their instruments. And Simon Neil has over 10 strats with him.





Tuesday: Susanne Sundfør

MIND = SO BLOWN. This girl can fucking SING and her songwriting skillz are up thar with all the Townsends and Wilsons and Åkerfeldts and so on. Unbelievable concert. 6 multi-instrumentalists, the drummer was running back and forth from his kit to the xylophone. And that perforrmance, enthusiasm and what the fuck I can't think of words to describe the AWE SOME NESS. Srsly. Buy everything she has ever made and go to every concert. You will not be disappointed.

Monday: Biffy Clyro

They were great. Simon did alot of screaming in the first three songs, but the atmosphere amongst the band was great. They also like to completely rape their instruments. And Simon Neil has over 10 strats with him.

On their last tour, Oceansize's Vennart played second guitars for the Biff. Now he's touring with the Size though, which is always better of course.

Front Line Assembly supported by Mind.in.a.box

Mind.in.a.box are Austrian future pop or whatever band singing about robots or something like that. Was kinda ok albeit I was wondering why there's bass guitar there when all I heard were synth basslines. Then there were Front Line Assembly, dark electro industrial pioneers, kind of stuff that makes you want to dance and invade Poland at the very same time. Did their thing quite right, people were dancing and invading bit was performed by some drunk girl that blitzkrieg'd the stage and hugged the crap out of Bill Leeb. Topical trivia: Devin played guitar on their Hardwired and Millenium albums and SYL's Jed Simon and Adrian White were touring members for some time. If you don't know that.

Here's a cool portrait of Bill Leeb emerging from the darkness:

Goldfrapp, they were fucking amazing as usual, sounded absolutely bloody massive

Can't believe how perfectly she sings live too, note-perfect but with little improvs to let you know she's not miming

My brother saw Goldfrapp couple of days ago and was quite suspicious about her live performance. Said something about her coughing while vocals were playing and stuff. She made up for it by wearing a jacket made of VHS tape, though.

I saw Mayhem when they came to Brisbane a couple of weeks back, I thought they were good. The set list was great for me (except for no Life Eternal) because I prefer their older songs, which they included. However, Necrobutcher and one of the guitarists (can't remember the name) looked a bit bored, hah. Attilla had some interesting stage moves, some might think they are lame, but I thought it was entertaining. And of course, the drumming was excellent. The supports were also really good, Mongrel's Cross and Astriaal. Check them out if you ever get a chance!

Saw Crippled Black Phoenix yesterday.

The ticket was a bit of an impulse purchase since I wasn't very familiar with the band. Then the opening act (Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat) wasn't my cup of tea much, so I was getting a bit nervous, afraid I'd wasted my money on this ticket.

But CBP were really great Friendly guys (and gals) having a chat with the audience, playing some great songs, playing great. Really really enjoyed it. Bit post-rocky but not too much or too cliche. Some heavy parts, some tender parts, good singer, hot chick playing piano (win!).

Too bad they didn't have any T-shirts or CDs to sell because I really thought they deserved some of my money.

Gravetemplars, just a few hours ago, at Toff in Town Melbourne. Great little venue where the sound truly reverberates.
Guest tonight was Marco Fusinato, who put on a 40 minute show of distorted guitar noise and ambience. The sounds he was making were not only insane and surreal, but I swear my teeth were vibrating during some of the sections.

Gravetemplars were freaking awesome - Stephen O'Malley & Oren Ambarchi on guitars, and a guy named Brett on the drums; it was supposed to be Matt Skitz, but he was sick reportedly; still, his replacement was damn impressive.
Over an hour of droning bliss, with drum beats ranging from light patters to monster blasts. The first song was quite soothing and hypnotic, but my earplugs struggled to fight off that thick sound. The second was more brutal and distorted, much like a Sunn O))) track, though if it was I'm not sure which one - I stopped trying to guess about two minutes in.
Either way, I'm glad I went to this. Money well spent.

-Edited exaggerated bits.

[swervedriver]

Alter Bridge

Just plain awesome.

Tin Hat





those are videos taken on the current tour.

it was absolutely fantastic last night!

The last concert I saw, besides Devin a couple weeks ago was the Alice Cooper/Rob Zombie show. It was really good, Alice was amazing as always, and Rob Zombie was good.

Next concert up (hopefully): Blind Guardian

Jonsi.

Bweaaaaah!! Such an amazing show! I had heard his album (Go) a couple of times and enjoyed it, but when he was coming to town charging 30 euros for a ticket, I wasn't so sure I should go see him. No regrets though, he really has an amazing show. Huge visuals projected on the backdrop and screens by the side of the stage, amazingly choreographed lights, tight performance... It was all done to perfection. If you get the chance, go see, no matter what he charges.

(PS 25 euros for a T-shirt and 20 euros for a poster is too much, even for me.)


Then Olafur Arnalds did a nice late-night aftershow which was also great. He got some new visuals (some very similar to Jonsi's, but Oli claimed he had them first ) and flashing lights. Tight performance too, and we got some more babbling than he usually does I think. Although he totally burst my Ljósið bubble

Got dragged to Recoil+Architect. Recoil = Alan Wilder, better known from pre '95 Depeche Mode. Recoil's music is very original, trip hop with strong bluesy vibe and whatnots - shame their set was nothing more than playing songs and videos off their laptops - I really can't say it looked like "DJ set". Kinda lame if you ask me. And while Wilder himself calls it "event" show's organiser had nerve to call it "concert". Whatevs, at least I repaid pirated Recoil records with ticket money.

Architect, who was supporting them played some heavy IDM and even dubstep in more interactive manner (playing some melodic lines on Novation controller and making stuttery glitchy stuff), was quite nice.