Opeth

w/ Contrive

The Palace Theatre, Melbourne – 25th November 2009

***More photos can be viewed here***

An ocean of green and blue. The dimming of the house lights. The raucous screams from the hordes, baying for the hounds. Opeth were back in Melbourne ready to deliver what is expected of them – progressive perfection under the guise of death metal.

I have witness these Swedish maestros twice previously, once at the legendary Wacken Open Air where the kicks in the mix all but gave me heart palpitations, and last year at the same beautiful venue as this Australian tour, where despite being technically brilliant the gig lacked a certain aura I had expected from such a massive band. However not this night, this night was grand!

Gliding slowly but majestically into proceedings, the five piece opened with Windowpane from the Damnation album, as they’ve done previously on this tour to both Brisbane and Sydney, before continuing onto the newer tracks Ghost of Perdition and The Lotus Eater – a recent favourite of mine in all its jazz interlude glory.

Switching decades, April Ethereal was an unexpected surprise for long time fans, while Face of Melinda gave the crowd somewhat of an insight into band practice, as the group converged together like friends jamming in the rehearsal room. In fact it was quite a monumental few minutes of the show, with front man Mikael Åkerfeldt leaving his one metre niche around the microphone stand for the first time. He did dominant that ‘area’ though, with his witty sense of humour reminiscing between Manowar and when he “used to have a mullet and wear shorts, until my cock got too big”… quite touching…

Hex Omega, the band’s ‘last song of the night’ brought upon the ‘we know its not, but we will pretend its true’ styled jeering from the partisan crowd, and the cries of all the Opeth fan boys were heard loud and clear only for the band to return to the stage in a lull, basking in self glory with keyboard and guitar solos courtesy of Per Wiberg and Fredrik Åkesson respectively. And with the watch clicking over the two hour mark for Opeth’s set, Åkerfeldt swiftly took control once more with the band capping off their time in Melbourne with the title track from Deliverance – predictably receiving a final massive response from the crowd.

Comparing it to last year’s experience, this was a much improved performance from the guys in terms of crowd atmosphere and personal enjoyment not only for yours truly, but clearly the 1000+ fans left very much contented from an evening of progressions and nuances that gave something to all fans new and old.

OPETH SETLIST: Wednesday 25th Novemeber, 2009
1. Windowpane
2. Ghost of Perdition
3. The Lotus Eater
4. The Leper Affinity
5. Hessian Peel
6. April Ethereal
7. Face of Melinda
8. Reverie/Harlequin Forest
9. Hex Omega
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10. Keyboard Solo/Guitar Solo/Vocal Solo
11. Deliverance