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lotl Tivoli, Bremen, Germany
11th April 2019
Lord Of The Lost - “Thornstar” Tour 2019 - Support: Hell Boulevard

LORD OF THE LOST are continuing their extended “Thornstar” tour also in 2019 - after having played in many major German cities, Italy, UK, Russia, Latvia, even China and many more countries, the second leg of the German tour brings the guys to even more cities that they haven’t visited during the first part, some of them even never before. And so the trip to Bremen on this Thursday evening is also a good reason for the fans from the Northern part of Germany to pay a visit to this historical city, or at least the industrial area of it when you arrive just five minutes before the doors open.


Hell Boulevard

HELL BOULEVARD just finished their first headliner tour in February with an epic final gig in Hamburg, but the break did not last long. Less than a month later they are touring again - this time as support for LORD OF THE LOST. Both bands are connected through a long lasting friendship beyond professional bonds and so it is more than obvious that this combo needed to go on tour together.

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Music & Performance
The hall was filling continuously, it was not a sold-out evening, but though it was a Thursday, the crowd looked good by the time when HELL BOULEVARD came on stage at 8 pm. The guys started energetically with a whole lot of fun and great charisma. A thing about LORD OF THE LOST concerts that I really appreciate, is, that often enough their support bands are really cool and so it was this time as well. HELL BOULEVARD performed a great mix of catchy songs that have a huge potential for becoming hits or already are (on the way). The latest single ‘Bitch Next Door’ was dedicated to the guitarist Fede von Marengo who “plays guitar in many bands” (writer’s note: not just the guitar) and who - visibly satisfied - accepted this “award”.

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The next song, ‘In Black We Trust’, as the title of the new, second album and the title of the first headliner tour that the guys played in February - is also one of those really catchy, dark and playfully composed songs. Let’s get to the next one… when you want to see Goths and Metal heads singing along one of the biggest Pop hits of the threshold for the new Millennium just visit a show of HELL BOULEVARD. As myself being 10 when ‘... Baby One More Time’ was released and now fortunately too old to care about being true, yes, I love that cover and really enjoyed singing it along.

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There are some great heavy music cover versions of popular Pop songs that show how well these songs are actually written and the heaviness of the guitars and drums makes them even cooler and much more dramatic than they’ve ever been. The best thing to do now, is to play the dynamic & heavy ‘Zero Fucks Given’ and watching the guys wearing beautiful accessories, be it the bunny ears or the LED sunglasses programmed with the tile of the song itself. Despite all the fun, also more deep and dramatic songs found their way into the set list, like ‘My Dead Valentine’. A wonderful, fun, energetic and dark performance. Keep it up!

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Setlist
01. Intro
02. As Above So Below
03. Satan In Wonderland
04. A Lesson In Pain
05. Bitch Next Door
06. In Black We Trust
07. …Baby One More Time (Britney Spears cover)
08. Zero Fucks Given
09. My Dead Valentine
10. Love Is Dead
11. Hangover From Hell

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Light: 10
Sound: 10
Total: 10 / 10

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Lord of the Lost

So LORD OF THE LOST, celebrating 10 years in December this year, are touring “again” or more continuing the in 2018 started “Thornstar” tour and this is always a good reason to take the metro, train or car and make a trip to wherever they play. This time it turned out to be Bremen. I haven’t been at Tivoli for a while now (is it already almost 5 years?!), so a good reason to come back.

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Music & Performance
The set of the night started with the epic ‘Loreley’ from the current album ‘Thornstar’ album. A really dark atmosphere and the venue itself covered in almost pure darkness, while for the highlights the effect of the strobe light was majestic here. Many of the ‘Thornstar’ songs were presented and so gave the guys many chances to show their immense artistic skills. LORD OF THE LOST is one of the strongest live bands, never failing to give it all with the extremely powerful live performance. In between the new songs, older hits and gems appeared, like the aggressive ‘Full Metal Whore’ or ‘Prison’, bringing back so many memories of the countless great gigs in all the years.

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The one and only ‘Hyper Hyper’ related song, ‘Blood For Blood’, turned out to become a fitness unit. Chris challenged the audience at Tivoli to jump along the chorus and the crowd followed. It turned out to be pretty loud and cool, and no plaster fell from the ceiling, though due to the volume and vibration it wouldn’t have surprised me at all. After ‘Voodoo Doll’, by the way a new minimalistic but extremely intense and emotionally demanding video was just released for this one, Chris slowly walked to the one site of the stage, stating “You know that you are touring with HELL BOULEVARD, when there are crows on stage during your performance”, pointing to one of the deco crows that was still sitting on the tall speaker by the side, then walking back to the centre of the stage, kneeling down, picking up something from the stage edge that I haven’t noticed before and continuing “and you know that you are playing in a Goth Metal or Rock band, when there is a teddy bear sitting on stage”. Oh well, that is so true.

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So the next performed song, ‘Under The Sun’, was dedicated to the bear. The first really funny moment of the gig and something I appreciate a lot about this band. While their performance got better and better over the years, being now at a point of an almost “technically” perfection if there is such a thing, they “still” know how to have fun on stage, and make everyone laugh, sometimes even so hard it gets hard to breath. A set change in the second part brought back the duo of Chris Harms and Gared Dirge aka Gerrard Rachmaninoff that night. A minimalistic stage piano part with ‘Sooner Or Later’ and ‘Credo’ and the insight, that the connection between these two guys must be that thing you call “real love”. It is just beautiful and heart-warming to see them interact with each other.

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LORD OF THE LOST trashed the official encore part from the live gigs, but kind of announced it anyway, which I liked ‘cause otherwise I feel like I have no idea how much of the gig is still left, so the encore signals “okay girl, get ready to return back to the real world in about 2-3 songs” which is good to prepare yourself for the end. Anyway the last three songs that defined the end, were as epic as the whole show, the energetic ‘Die Tomorrow’, the best Samba Metal song of the world ‘La Bomba’ and for the end the meaningful ‘Lighthouse’, accompanied by a sea of light in the audience. It is all about these moments and creating memories. And that is what we did here once again.

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Setlist
01. Morgana
02. Afterlife
03. Drag Me To Hell
04. Black Halo
05. In Our Hands
06. Voodoo Doll
07. Under The Sun
08. Seven Days Of Anavrin
09. Haythor
10. In Darkness, In Light
11. Prison
12. Six Feet Underground
13. Sooner Or Later / Credo
14. It’s A Sin (Pet Shop Boys cover)
15. Blood For Blood
16. Doomsday Disco
17. Die Tomorrow
18. La Bomba
19. Lighthouse

Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Light: 10
Sound: 10
Total: 10 / 10

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All pictures by Nastja Iz

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