Wed 25 Nov – Opeth, Contrive
Opeth are a band that I had only recently discovered (maybe a year or so) and ever since hearing
Watershed I have been dying to see them play live.
When the tour was announced I quickly snatched up some tickets for Jack and I and ever since have listened to them non-stop; at work, in the car and at home.
The amount of skill displayed on all of their albums is astonishing, so both Jack and I agreed that they’d probably be able to “do it live”.
We weren’t let down at all.
They opened with
Windowpane, one of their slower, softer songs from the almost completely acoustic album
Damnation. The crowd loved it and sang along all the way through.
After a quick “hello”
Mikael Åkerfeldt launched straight into
Ghost of Perdition, a song that bounces between heavy and soft, brutal and delicate. This is one of their “hits” and it was magnificent to see the crowd get so involved.
The whole night was a bit of a blur, with no real loss of momentum despite the slower acoustic parts of songs, so I can’t place where Mikael joked around between songs, but man, he was pretty funny. He managed to have a go at
James Hetfield,
ABBA,
AC/DC,
Manowar and others. I didn’t realise he was such a great frontman. Despite being very “out-there” you got the vibe the he – and the rest of the band – were very down to Earth people.
The middle of the set was a bit of a blur for me, but the setlist went something like,
The Lotus Eater (a classic prog song from Watershed),
The Leper Affinity (heavy as fuck featuring an awesome proggy riff),
Hessian Peel (one of my favourite songs, which went down an absolute treat, especially the heavy part),
April Ethereal.
After a bit of banter Mikael introduced
Face of Melinda, which was probably the “moment” for me, where I realised how amazing these guys really are. His voice was just phenomenal in this one!
This was followed up with one of my favourite drum-heavy songs,
Reverie/Harlequin Forest – to me if there is the “galloping guitars”, this song features the galloping drums. Love them.
We were informed that the “last song” of the night would be
Hex Omega, and while that was one of my least favourite songs off Watershed, this was probably my favourite of the gig. The soft part 2/3 through suited the gig completely. Couldn’t have been more happy with that song choice, especially with those varied drum rolls at the end!
The crowd went absolutely mental for about 3 minutes before Opeth came back out and Mikael introduced all of the band members, and
Per Wilberg ripped a really cool keyboard solo, then
Fredrik Åkesson pulled off (I hate this cliche but it really was) a face melting solo. I hadn’t realised how good that guy can shred!
The crowd demanded that Mikael do a solo, but for about a minute he kept repeating, “I don’t do solos!” The crowd didn’t give up so he decided to do an A cappella version of a number of Whitesnake songs before joking around some more. The guy had the entire audience in his hand. Not many frontmen can do that.
They finished the gig with
Deliverance, which is a perfect song for that, especially the double kick drums at the end. What a gig.
9/10
People with no social lives that listen to more music than is healthy who are…