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OPETH

w/ Virgin Black

The Palace – Melbourne, 5th September, 2008.

Check out photos from the gig here!

Let me start off by saying that I am an Opeth fan. Maybe not the most die hard one that has ever lived, but a fan enough to own 5 of their albums. Therefore a considerable amount of thought was given to my reaction after seeing Opeth live at The Palace in Melbourne.

Opeth, granted, are a well oiled metal machine. Regularly delivering fans quality albums, and the weakest of which could easily be called a lot better than most other bands. However it is in this respect where their live performance really disappointed me. A well oiled machine yes. Well executed, yes. Boring, quite so.

Eight albums and extensive tours around the world, with this one marking their fourth Australian tour. And from this the band, in my opinion, has become quite stale in the live setting. Only a few times throughout the set did I see much enthusiasm from any in the band except Mr Wilberg, who head banged the night away in his hidden alcove at the back of the stage along side his keyboard! The lights display throughout the set was almost unrivalled (personally Sigur Ros @ Festival Hall outshone them!) and Åkerfeldt’s humour between songs was also mildly entertaining.

In terms of the actual music played, well as I alluded to earlier there was nothing really bad about its execution. The sound if anything was a bit too bass loud, and clarity was lost a bit during the heavier sections, but generally each individual instrument could easily be heard if you focused on it. The drumming duties, of course taken care of by drummer Martin ‘Axe’ Axenrot, were very impressive, as were the clean vocals delivered by Åkerfeldt. As far as his harsh vocals go, on any Opeth recording I love the power contained within the growls, however in the live arena I thought that it was missing, as if the harsh vocals were kind of forced. He was clearly shown up in this regard by the support band, Adelaide’s Virgin Black, who put in an impressive display of their orchestral doom inspired metal, due largely to the booming voice of vocalist Rowan London!

Vocal power and presence, in my opinion, often directly leads to an amazing atmosphere in the crowd. When the vocalist can control the crowd as if it’s second nature, nights like these seriously go off the scale! Unfortunately during the Opeth set, all we really saw was a couple of crowd surfing attempts at unsuitable times in the song (eg, halfway through Master’s Apprentice’s!). Although the crowd did deliver one highlight during the track Deliverance, where Åkerfeldt was joined on vocals by most of the audience – obviously a fan favourite and I agree as it was probably one of the best tracks on the night.

But overall, maybe it was just an off night for the band that we here in Melbourne happened to witness? I know, judging by the reaction immediately after the gig that I’ll have a number of people disagree with my assessment, I suspect I may have a few in my corner aswell though, so feel free to join me on the Metal Obsession Forums and share your thoughts on this gig and the rest of Opeth’s Australian Tour.

OPETH MELBOURNE SETLIST
Heir Apparent
Master’s Apprentices
Baying of the Hounds
Serenity Painted Death
To Rid the Disease
The Lotus Eater
Bleak
Night and Silent Water
Deliverance
Demon of the Fall
~~~~~
The Drapery Falls (Encore)

Reviewed by Brendan Amos.
Photos taken by Scott Boelsen.
Thanks to Scorpion Entertainment.