Mixtream, Heerhugowaard, the NetherlandsSeptember 4th 2005
Leaves' Eyes
In a city just some kilometres north of Amsterdam at one of those small summer festivals they had booked the German band Leaves' Eyes. Eventhough there are plenty of good Dutch gothic metal bands the organisation decided to pick Leaves' Eyes for their festival.
Leaves' Eyes
The former singer of Theatre of Tragedy, Liv Kristine Espenaes, decided to form her own band and make her own music. The band she found were the members of Atrocity, band of her husband Axel Krull, who thought the fundamentally different music did challenge them enough to join in. Apart from Liv Kristine the band consists of Thorsten Bauer (Guitar), Mathias Röderer (Guitar), Christian Lukhaup (Bass), Moritz Neuner (Drums) and as mentioned before Atrocity's singer and Liv's husband Alexander Krull who does additional vocals.
Music
Mystic melodies with underneath some pretty heavy music, an angelic voice of Liv Kristine combined with Alex' rough and powerful voice give this band all the opportunities to make some good music. It was obvious this band has been around quite a while, all musicians acted professionally and handeled their instruments with good skill. Apart from the electronic bassdrums used by Moritz, which did sound very good, the unuasal factor could be the bass parts. In most of the songs Christian is slapping his bass wich is a rare sight in gothic metal. Liv's voice was very clear today as was Alex' rough. All in all a musically seen well done concert, just one big downside when it comes to the sound. I'm sure the front fo house mixer tried his best but was outpowered by annoying disco beats coming from a DJ stand nearby. Only very close to the stage the disco beats had faded enough to not interrupt the real music.
Performance
The stage was small, maybe a bit too small to allow the band to move around a lot. Nevertheless they did, causing some near collisions between bandmembers. Liv Kristine is a woman who has this very sincere friendly face, and the way she connects to her audience is examplory. Somehow she manages to make people feel special, her smile, eyes and remarks are very real, no fake popular poses or words here. Alex is the beast on stage, but still you can see he's only trying to look rough, his eyes betray his true friendly nature. Whenever he's on stage he's busy trying to cheer op the crowd, too few real metal people were out there to create a decent roar, but he did get the hands up. The rest of the band is basically busy playing their instruments, occasionally making eye contact with the audience. There were some moving lights in the back of the stage, the little amount of smoke made them visible, but the bright daylight made a real light spectacle totally impossible.
Setlist
01. Norwegian Lovesong
02. Farewell Proud Men
03. Ocean's Way
04. Into your Light
05. The Thorn
06. Leaves' Eyes
07. Solemn Sea
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08. Elegy
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 8
Sound: 7
Light: - (daylight performance)
Total: 8
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