Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany6th November 2006
Lacuna Coil and Poisonblack
Having no chance to see LACUNA COIL at the M’era Luna festival 2005 I was very much looking forward the show in Cologne. The line-up with three bands – POISON BLACK and LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE – looked very promising. Lacrimas Profundere were planned as the opening band, but the singer had some accident during a previous show and so all shows from Cologne further had to be cancelled. So, only two bands for the evening. That it turned in fact out as only one band plus three songs of the headliner is another story…
This evening’s layout of the venue – sometimes they make it smaller with hung up curtains – was a sign that many fans were awaited. Anyway it filled up quite slowly but at eight, a good amount of people showed up. Getting the info per newsletter earlier the day, that LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE had cancelled, I was curious if there was a replacement. And I guess many other were too or did not even know that there will only be two bands. A big merchandising stand was built up at the back end of the venue where lots of people gathered before the show started. All in all, the audience was older than expected – not that many very young people – with real old rockers, well-suited gentlemen and ladies. When the first band – POISONBLACK for that matter – started, people moved more towards the stage.
Poisonblack
The evening started a bit later than announced – I guess because there was one band less – at twenty minutes past nine with the Finnish metallers POISONBLACK. Being originally a guitarist but the singer within the band SENTENCED until end of 2005, Ville Laihiala founded POISONBLACK where he can act as a guitarist again. Together with further musicians he founded the band and released the first album “Escapexstacy”. The idea to form an own band existed mainly since 2000. The song writing took a while and finally the debut was released in 2003 at Century Media who signed the band immediately. Singer J.P. quit the job in 2004 and instead of searching for a new singer Ville took over the job himself. The current album “Lust Stained Despair” was released in August 2006 and currently the band is touring Europe with label mates LACUNA COIL. POISONBLACK are Ville Laihiala (vocals, lead guitar), Janne Markus (guitar), Marco Sneck (keyboards), Antti Remes (bass) and Tarmo Kanerva (drums). www.poisonblack.com/ / www.myspace.com/officialpoisonblack
Music
With six out of nine songs, the main issue of this evening’s show was of course on the current album “Lust Stained Despair”. With the new album, singer Ville took over the job on the microphone again what should be a pleasure for all fans of his former band SENTENCED. Even though there are a lot of similarities to the music of SENTENCED, there are certain musical and lyrical differences. Opening song “Raivotar” was surely one going more into the old direction – as well as “Soul in Flames” that followed short after. Different to that, i.e. “The darkest Lie” goes more into a Goth Rock direction; with its piano melody and the slightly distorted voice it was a bit like PARADISE LOST or HIM even. “Nothing else remains” was again a harder number remembering a bit of the Swedish band SOILWORK. Equally hard they went on with “Rush”. The last song “The living dead” turned out then again a bit more melancholic. In-between those songs from the current album, three more songs from the debut album “Escapexstacy” have been played. These older songs seemed to be a bit more melancholic but rocked well too. All the hard guitars were underlined by keyboard melodies played by Marco. The music had several 80s Hard Rock elements in it. All in all it was not diversified enough for me compared with other bands of the same genre. The sound at the evening was quite good, all instruments were well mixed… besides the keyboard which was hardly recognized. Only from time to time the overall sound was a bit booming, but on the other hand, the voice was mixed well and was blended well into the music.
Performance
Most of the stage was covered with a big curtain so there was not too much room for the band to act. Nearly all members were standing in line… only the drum set was standing slightly behind. The overall show was some typical Metal performance with banging heads, flying hair and musicians posing with their guitars. Keyboarder Marco was banging behind the instrument too and reminded me in his whole behavior a lot of Tuomas from NIGHTWISH. Even though the performance was nothing really special, the artists on stage seemed to have fun and also there seemed to be lots of fans of the band in the audience too who clapped and cheered a lot. Sometime a fan was yelling something in Suomi and Ville answered with “No fucking way” what caused a lot of laughs. I really wonder what the question was. ;) Surprisingly the light show was much better than expected. I had heard that it was quite dark and unmotivated during the show in Malmö and so I feared the worst. But different to that, the whole band was enlightened brightly in different shades of red and white with some yellow. From time to time also some green and blue was included what created a nice mood.
Setlist
01. Raivotar
02. The Exiter
03. Soul In Flames
04. Love Infernal
05. The Darkest Lie
06. Nothing Else Remains
07. Rush
08. Illusion/Delusion
09. The living Dead
Rating
Music 5
Performance 6
Sound 7
Light 7
Total 5.9
Lacuna Coil
Starting in 1994 under the name SLEEP OF RIGHT and one more name change, finally two years later the band name LACUNA COIL was found. At that time the band consisted of six members with singers Christina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro in front. Short time after the first two demo songs had sent out, label Century Media made the offer to sign them. The first live experiences weren’t very good and during the first tour, half of the members left the band. Back in Milan they complete the band again and work further on their career. 2000 was the year when the name LACUNA COIL appeared in the line-up of any big festival and some years later – in 2004 – they played US Ozzfest what brought them a big break through across the ocean. End of May 2006 the recent album “Karmacode” was released and is yet another milestone in the career of this Italian band. LACUNA COIL are Cristina Scabbia (female vocals), Andrea Ferro (male vocals), Marco Coti Zelati (bass), Cristiano Migliore (lead guitars), Marco Emanuele Biazzi (lead guitars) and Cristiano Mozzati (drums & percussions). www.lacunacoil.it/ / www.myspace.com/lacunacoil
Music
Touring to promote the current album “Karmacode” the setlist was of course mainly containing songs of the album from which ten (out of 14) songs have been played. Additionally another new song – “Virtual Environment” contained on the “Enjoy the silence single” – was included to the setlist. Furthermore there were not so many older songs included – just three from “Comalies” which were “Swamped”, “Entwined” and “Heaven’s a lie” as well as two songs from “Unleashed Memories” – “1:19” and “To live is to hide”. The show started right away with three new songs in a row, first of them being “You create”.
The current album doesn’t stand back behind the previous ones “Comalies” and “Unleashed Memories”. “Karmacode” is a very experienced and varied album with oriental sounds, fat grooves and heavy guitars. Light synth lines are spread in-between all the guitar sounds. Vocal-wise Andrea and Cristina are alternating and joining – a perfect combination of male and female vocals. As far as I can say from the three (ok, 3.5) songs I was allowed to see, the whole band is working very well together. Professional and experienced. The sound was equally good as during the previous band – just a bit booming at the beginning. Music and vocals were well mixed.
Performance
What can you say about the performance of a band when you only were allowed to see three songs? Not really much, but let me just try to tell you my impressions from this short part. Before the show started, the big curtain on stage was removed and a big backdrop was unveiled showing the band name and the known bandaged face from the “Karmacode” cover. When the first sounds of the intro appeared, the stage was tinted in black (and little blue) light. The whole band – besides the singers – entered the stage wearing white masks - exactly like the face on the album cover - which were glowing in the black light. Then, like a storm, Cristina and Andrea appeared on stage starting very powerful – running across the stage or banging their heads. Right from the beginning both pushed up the audience and earned excited applause. The lights were very bright; just as if they wanted to make sure all people could see how well they worked together. They seemed to be really experienced. The lightshow had its mystic moments too when smoke was flowing just over the floor lightened up with lilac light. And then… I had to leave all of a sudden and totally unprepared.
First I was wondering what the security guy wanted when he asked me and some other press people, wearing the wrist band that showed they were press photographers, to follow him. Behind the stage we asked a bit confused what he wanted and he just said we need to bring the cameras out of the building. Shock! Leaving just when the show had started? Ok, leaving the cameras at a safe place would not have been any problem. But he denied us from leaving them at the wardrobe even – in that case we could have gotten it back to take pics whenever we wanted. What kind of a behavior is that? I cannot believe that the band wanted it like this. I guess they like to have good press coverage and not being portrayed as total assholes for kicking the people out of the venue that are writing about the show.
The security guy just said we should keep the cameras in the cars and come back. As if I would leave some thousands euros of equipment alone in the car. Besides that, there were photographers/writers who did not even have a car at the venue. Lost the game in that case, huh! I just was driving 150 km to see a great show of a band I like and share my experiences. Instead I just had little more than three songs. Not nice to treat us like that. I just hope that it was a misunderstanding between promoter and security… otherwise I am really disappointed at the band and the management…
Setlist (as printed out and placed on stage)
01. Intro
02. You Create
03. What I See
04. Fragments of Faith
05. Swamped
06. Fragile
07. In Visible Light
08. 1:19
09. Closer
10. Devoted
11. To Live Is To Hide
12. Entwined
13. To the Edge
14. Daylight Dancer
15. Virtual Environment
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16. Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode cover)
17. Heaven’s a Lie
18. Our Truth
Rating (for the three songs I was allowed to see)
Music 8
Performance 8
Sound 7
Light 9
Total 8
More pics on Black-Cat-Net
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