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Elysée Montmartre, Paris, France
22 December 2007
Therion, The Vision Bleak

As a guest of Therion this tour I had been to a couple of shows already; Antwerpen and Amsterdam. Both were great as usual, but to this show I was really looking forward! It was the last show of the tour and, as already announced on the website, it was promised to be a very special show. Therion invited a couple of extra special guests to the last show: Mats Levén, Piotr Wawrzeniuk, Messiah Marcolin and belly dancer Arien.


The Vision Bleak

The Vision Bleak is a gothic metal band from Germany formed in 2000, consisting of former Empyrium member Ulf Theodor Schwadorf and former Nox Mortis member Allen B Konstanz. The band's themes are most notably orientated towards horror.

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Music and Performance
Sirenia was supposed to be also joining the tour, but for the fact that they didn’t have a singer anymore, they had to cancel. I expected The Vision Bleak to play longer in that case, but they stuck to a small 30 minutes. Starting off with the intro ‘Amala & Kamala’ followed by ‘The Demon of the Mire’ The Vision Bleak entered the stage a bit chaotic. I noticed that the band tried to put some energy in their performance, but it was not really showing off on stage. In the beginning of the show there was little interaction between the band members among and the band and the audience. Halfway the show it got better and they even got the audience to join in with ‘Kutulu!’. As a surprise Snowy Shaw (Therion) and Thomas Vikström (Therion) showed their faces onstage. Well not really faces, they were covered up with the masks of the creatures Therion uses onstage. Half naked, with only a pair of knickers with bananas in it (I hope…), they jumped around onstage, making the audience to scream. Unfortunately The Vision Bleak just continued playing like nothing much was happening, not paying much attention to the jokes. The sound during the show was quite ok; the instruments were nicely tuned on each other. Sometimes there was a little too much bass mixed into it. With a light show of mostly white and red light combined with two backdrops the band was nicely shown on stage.

Setlist
00. Intro: Amala & Kamala
01. The Demon Of The Mire
02. Carpathia
03. The Grand Devilry
04. Kutulu!
05. By Our Brotherhood With Seth

Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 6
Sound: 7
Light: 6
Total: 6






Therion

The band started in 1987 under the name Blitzkrieg, changed name to Therion in 1988 and released some demos and a MLP in 89 before the debut "Of Darkness" was released in 1991. Being known as a creative death metal band, Therion developed over the years (starting with "Beyond Sanctorum" in 1992) to become an avant garde act appreciated by a strong undergound audience. Their third and fourth albums were extremely experimental and there was a change of members in between all albums. The founder of the band, Christofer Johnsson remained the only original member and wrote the majority of the song material.
In 1996 their fifth album "Theli" was released and this is usually considered to be the breakthough album of the band. The style on Theli had changed into a symphonic opera metal with all kinds of influences, including 70's progressive rock, 80's heavy metal, oriental music and plenty more. Member problems continued and the follow up "Vovin" (Therion's best selling record with over 125.00 copies sold in Europe) was recorded as Christofer's solo album, but still under the name Therion. This was the first record to include real orchestra and with the records "Deggial" and "Secret of the runes" the band has created a total hybrid between catchy metal music and opera/classic music. Since Deggial the lineup has been stable except for drummers. In 2002 the band celebrated their 15 year anniversary by releasing the double live CD "Live in Midgard". On the twin albums "Sirius B" and "Lemuria" the band has taken this concept even futher and 171 musicians and singers in total were involved in creating these ultimate progressions of symphonic music. With the last album Gothic Kabballah Therion enters another stage again. (source: http://megatherion.com)



Music and Performance
The Swedish band Therion has a special reasons for this tour; their 20 year anniversary! With a special tour for the fans a setlist of 3 hours was promised with all kinds of special artists. Tonight the first special guest was already to be seen in the very beginning; belly dancer Arien. For a couple of songs she was one stage performing her special tricks. On both sides two mystical creatures were tied up to a pole trying to release themselves, which succeeded during  ‘Wine of Aluqah’. Catching Snowy Shaw (vocals), locking him up in a used in The Middle Ages to torture someone of punish someone gave us a very special version of ‘Wisdom and the Cage’. At the end of the song it was Thomas Vikström (vocals) who released Snowy from the damn thing by whipping the creatures away. After a long first set, with the special Lemuria performed acoustic, the band disappeared from stage for 7 minutes. After the break the whole ‘Theli’ album was played. My favourite song ‘The Siren of the Woods’ was brought as a special theatre play between Lori (vocals) and Thomas (vocals).



Although the band was quite tired after this exhausting tour, they were still quite energetic onstage. A lot of interaction was going on onstage where Kristian (guitar), Johan (bass) and Christofer (guitar) were often to be found next to each other to have some fun. Also Ferdy Doensberg (keys), who joined the whole Therion tour as a special guest for playing the keys, was making the audience very enthusiastic. With a real organ and a Monk suit it was a funny sight. Lori (vocals), Thomas (vocals) and Snowy (vocals) were joking around onstage and making it a real party. I was really impressed by their voices; not only were they in very good shape after such a long tour, but they perfectly fitted to each other and I didn’t hear a single one out of key.

 

Then it was time for the slot with a lot of special guests. Piotr Wawrzeniuk joined in for the last part in ‘Adulruna Rediviva’, so did Mats Levén. Thomas and Snowy made a big party out of  ABBA cover ‘Summernight City’ and the cover ‘Black Funeral’ was sung by ‘frogjumper’ Messiah Marcolin and Mats Levén. Ending with one of my favourite singers Mats on ‘Blood of Kingu’ the band had to call it a day. Christofer thanked the audience in the end for the remarkable 20 years and sticking to their side. It was obvious that the fans wanted more, even after 3 hours of great show, great music and great entertainment, but it was really time for the band to go home and take a rest.



Setlist

01. The Rise Of Sodom And Gomorrah
02. Son of the Sun
03. Midgard
04. Asgard
05. Wine Of Aluqah
06. Wisdom and the cage
07. Kali Yuga Part 1-3
08. Lemuria
09. Via Nocturna
10. An arrow from the sun
11. Typhon
12. Ginnungagap
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13. Preludium (intro)
14. To Mega Therion
15. Cults Of The Shadow
16. In The Desert Of Set
17. Interludium
18. Nightside Of Eden
19. Opus Eclipse
20. Invocation Of Naamah
21. The Siren Of The Woods
22. Grand Finale / Postludium
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23. Adulruna Rediviva
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24. Black Funeral
25. Summernight City
Blood of Kingu

Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 9
Light: 8
Total: 9







More pictures can be found on www.llukygallery.nl
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