Palladium, Cologne, Germany9th July 2024
Bruce Dickinson - "The Mandrake Project Live 2024" - Support: Dominum
BRUCE DICKINSON and Cologne, or rather Kölsch, have a history. “I have some of the worst hangover days of my life to thank for this plonk. It’s incomprehensible to me how you can voluntarily force it down your throat when there are such wonderful beers in Germany.” We’ll probably never know whether the legendary singer, who is playing solo in Cologne - without his regular band IRON MAIDEN - might have grabbed a Kölsch in the backstage area after all.
Dominum
The support act from the beautiful city of Nuremberg is quite a weird act. In the footsteps of LORDI, GHOST, SABATON and FEUERSCHWANZ, this band formed two years ago to indulge in Zombie Metal. And the quartet pulls this off in a very half-baked way on so many levels. The singer calls himself Dr Dead, but some of the other members of DOMINUM have more familiar names such as Tommy or Victor. They want to shock and scare, so the instrumentalists all wear horror masks, while singer Dr Dead enters the stage with a top hat and walking stick and stares at the audience through his bright blue contact lenses. DOMINUM see themselves as an Epic Power Metal band, but perform tame Rock across the board and don’t even bother with THE SCORPIONS on their cover of ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane’.
Even though all the guests I knew in the audience were very irritated and disappointed by the support act after the concert, their performance was not at all badly received by a good portion of the audience in Cologne’s Palladium (the event was moved up from the E-Werk to the Palladium opposite due to the high demand).
Rating
Music: 3
Performance: 5
Light: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 5.5 / 10
Bruce Dickinson
After BRUCE DICKINSON sent the Rock and Metal world into a frenzy in September 2023 with the announcement of a new solo album and tour dates in Latin America, further details about his ‘The Mandrake Project’ were announced shortly afterwards. The first single release was ‘Afterglow of Ragnarok’, a dramatic and epic track that introduced the world not only to the album’s music, but also to the captivating story that forms the basis of ‘The Mandrake Project’. An eight-page comic entitled ‘Afterglow Of Ragnarok’, which tells the prequel to ‘The Mandrake Project’, is included in the booklet of the 7″ vinyl single of the same name and forms the framework for the story. The 7″ single also includes DICKINSON’s original solo demo version of the song ‘If Eternity Should Fail’, which first appeared on IRON MAIDEN’s 2015 album ‘The Book Of Souls’.
Music & Performance
You might think that BRUCE DICKINSON is out to make amends after the ordeal with the support act. At 9 pm, the singer enters the stage together with Tanya O’Callaghan (bass), Philip Näslund and Chris Declercq (guitar), Dave Moreno (drums) and Mistheria (keyboards). And it’s above all the almost 66-year-old frontman who sweeps across the stage like a wild bull and puts in so much effort that it’s a real pleasure. With ‘Accident Of Birth’, ‘Abduction’ and ‘Laughing In The Hiding Bush’, the band kick off furiously and are in impressive form right from the start. In addition to BRUCE DICKINSON, whose vocals are absolutely convincing throughout the evening, it is above all bassist Tanya O’Callaghan and keyboardist Mistheria who really get stuck in and strike the one or other pose.
After a very convincing start, there is a brief moment to take a deep breath. BRUCE DICKINSON elicits a few boos from the audience by joking that the elimination of the German national team from Euro 2024 is certainly an advantage for the audience because it allows them to concentrate better on the concert. If the German national team had won the quarter-final against Spain, they would have been allowed to play France at 9 pm on the evening of the concert. Afterwards, the show continues and with ‘Afterglow of Ragnarok’, the first song from the current album ‘The Mandrake Project’ is finally performed. It’s a bit unusual and a pity that the new long-player receives so little attention in the evening’s setlist. In addition to the album opener, only ‘Rain On The Graves’ and ‘Resurrection Men’ are played later on. In comparison: with five songs, ‘The Chemical Wedding’ from the late 90s is much better covered. However, the Kölsch-hater takes a lot of time to explain the history of the songs, especially with the new songs.
With ‘Jerusalem’, things quieten down a little later for the first time, inviting the audience to clap and sing along. A little later, BRUCE DICKINSON refers to their performance at the Hellfest Festival and that the TV channel Arte had uploaded the entire performance to YouTube. They were only able to perform there for an hour because METALLICA performed after them. Because of the shortened time, a few songs from the tour setlist had to be skipped, including ‘Tears Of The Dragon’, which many fans at the festival were probably disappointed about. Of course, there is no such problem in Cologne. In the end, the band performed for almost two hours in Cologne, including encores, and performed 16 songs in total.
The excellent evening in Cologne’s Palladium ended with ‘The Tower’. BRUCE DICKINSON takes the opportunity to introduce the band members at the end. Each individual member is properly celebrated and at the end the audience celebrates the band frenetically. Well deserved. A strong performance by a band in top form.
Setlist
01. Accident of Birth
02. Abduction
03. Laughing in the Hiding Bush
04. Faith
05. Afterglow of Ragnarok
06. Jerusalem
07. Chemical Wedding
08. Tears of the Dragon
09. Resurrection Men
10. Rain on the Graves
11. Frankenstein (The Edgar Winter Group cover)
12. The Alchemist
13. Darkside of Aquarius
14. Navigate the Seas of the Sun
15. Book of Thel
16. The Tower
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Light: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 8 / 10
All Pictures by André Wilms
