Stadtpark, Hamburg, Germany17th June 2014
Alter Bridge & Skillet
After their big festivals gigs at Rock am Ring and Rock im Park, ALTER BRIDGE came for one exclusive concert to the Stadtpark in Hamburg and brought along SKILLET as support and the best weather for an open air concert. Because of that fact, many curious listeners camped in the near of the stage in the city park and listened to the music from the outside of the terrain. We went in just in time, at least when you believe the announcement. But when we were in, we got a bad surprise and were not the only one, for which the evening started with a disappointment…
Skillet
According to the tickets, and even confirmed in advance by the organizer, the official beginning of the concert should be at 6:30 pm. But when we and many other fans, especially of the Nu Metal and Alternative Rock band SKILLET, entered the terrain of the city park stage, the band already played for fifteen minutes. With a short setlist out of seven songs, half of the opening concert was almost over by the time we entered [and so we also cannot show you pictures here]. The space in front of the stage was accordingly sparsely filled and many fans were not very happy about this fact. But SKILLET, coming from Memphis, Tennessee, seemed not to care too much about the small audience. They jumped across the stage and drummer Jen Ledger was bursting with energy and lets it all out to her drums. The only left founding member John Cooper, who is the lead singer and bassist of the band, always found enough energy for a clean singing next to all the jumps and moves.
Cooper's wife Korey, also a member of the band, changed always between her keyboards and her guitar. At least we have lead-guitarist Seth Morrison, the only one who does not sing in the band, jumped around just like Cooper. SKILLET already published eight studio albums, so the selection out of only seven songs was very difficult. After the last song, ‘Rebirthing’, Cooper repeated several times that they love all the people in the crowd, although there still were not that many people present. It took until after SKILLET left the stage that the terrain became much more filled with people. To support ALTER BRIDGE, the music of the band was very well chosen and although it was for the most of the people in the crowd a very short opening concert, the audience was curious for more. http://www.skillet.com / https://www.facebook.com/skillet
Setlist
01. Whispers in the Dark
02. Sick of It
03. Hero
04. Awake and Alive
05. Rise
06. Monster
07. Rebirthing
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 9
Sound: 6
Light: - (Daylight)
Total: 7.7 / 10
Alter Bridge
Half hour after SKILLET, the headliner of the evening entered the stage. Starting with a long intro coming from a CD, the guys from ALTER BRIDGE entered the stage and stood still for a moment, while letting them cheered by the fans. Then, the intro passed over to the opening song and their latest single, ‘Addicted to Pain’, sounded through the speakers. A short break happened after the third song, ‘Bleed It Dry’.
The fans in the first row probably could not comprehend what the problem was, but some rows behind them, the sound level was so low, that people could talk to each other without problems. The voice of singer Myles Kennedy was perfect, but all the instruments could only be heard on very low volume. So the people who were sitting outside the venue could not hear anything – not the best idea that they wanted to listen to the concert for free. But the fans in the back rows could have had the same thought. To the question "More guitar?" the fans loudly answer in the affirmative, but the sound technique could not do anything to make it better. The volume determination of the city park did not allowed a louder concert. So for a rock concert, the location was an optical nice choice, but not from the sound. The soft sound would not stop during the concert. Luckily, Kennedy has a voice being worth listening to, and his voice was still most clearly to hear and listen to. For ‘Brand New Start’, Kennedy laid down his guitar and detached himself for the first time from his place at the microphone stand and came to the front of the stage, so the fans, which were standing a few meters off the stage, could catch a better look of him. All in all, ALTER BRIDGE were more comfortable in their movements on stage then SKILLET.
Other guitarist and singer Mark Tremonti, Brian Marshall on the bass and drummer Scott Phillips tried to give their best musically, but through the small sound system and their shallow movements, the expectations of a "pure live-band", as they call themselves, was lost. Even Kennedy said in the meantime that he would be feeling like in his parents’ bedroom. So for the next concerts in Hamburg, you could expected that they would move into an indoor location to turn up the volume. They were playing other songs from all of their four long-players, like ‘Fortress’, ‘Broken Wings’ or one of their very best songs ever even it was never a single, ‘Metalingus’, short before the ending of the concert. After their very first single ‘Open Your Eyes’, ALTER BRIDGE left the stage but got back by the encore calls of the fans. First, only Kennedy came back to perform alone an acoustic version of ‘Watch Over You’. For the bouncer song ‘Rise Today’, the whole band entered the stage for the last time. While the masses still cheered in the end, the band came for the mandatory sharing of drum sticks and setlists. http://www.alterbridge.com / https://www.facebook.com/alterbridge
Setlist
01. Addicted to Pain
02. Come to Life
03. Bleed It Dry
04. Cry of Achilles
05. Brand New Start
06. Ghost of Days Gone By
07. Fortress
08. Ties That Bind
09. Waters Rising
10. Isolation
11. Broken Wings
12. Farther Than the Sun
13. Metalingus
14. Blackbird
15. Open Your Eyes
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16. Watch Over You
17. Rise Today
Rating
Music: 8
Performance: 7
Sound: 5
Light: - (Daylight)
Total: 6.6 / 10
Full Gallery
All Pictures by Jan Termath (http://www.profound-passion.com/)
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