Backstage Arena Süd, Munich, Germany
24th July 2021
Lacrimas Profundere
Originally, this concert was planned to take place already in March 2020 and was postponed several times due to the Corona pandemic. But finally, the day had come the show was really taking place… at the outdoor area of Backstage club…
LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE are a German Gothic-Metal band founded in 1993 focussing on Death Doom-Metal, then developed to Gothic Metal and then changed more to the direction of Gothic-Rock. The line-up changed several times over the years and in 2018 vocalist Julian Larre joined the band. LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE released their latest album ’Bleeding the Stars’ with new vocalist Julian Larre in 2019 and he definitely brings new power and fresh air, so LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE are heading straight forward. During a tour with THE 69 EYES in November 2019 they proved to be more like a co-headliner than a support and played energetic and dedicated sets every night. ‘Bleeding the Stars’ was in the top ten lists of many music magazines in 2019 and the live versions of the songs are even better. The band is currently working on a new album. www.lacrimas.com / www.facebook.com/lacrimasprofundereofficial
Music & Performance
Due to holidays ending in several Nordic countries and German states, there was insane traffic on the highway to Munich and thanks to further delays of the S-Bahn, I missed two thirds of the night’s support HIRAES. But that was not enough, flashes of lightning and roaring thunders combined with pouring rain would have meant the end of every outdoor show at a regular festival or concert. BACKSTAGE Munich worked a miracle once more this year and the tent they build over the stage and the sitting area protected band and audience form the rain, though not from the dropping temperature and so, many people were wearing jackets over their favourite band shirts.
It’s been nearly a year since I had seen LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE live on stage at the Olympic stadium in Munich, and I arrived with mixed feelings about how a band that consists of people who live not in the same place, not even in the same country will take a separation of nearly a year. They delivered hell of a show. It seems the band grew tighter than ever before and I don’t say such thing easily. I saw nine of their shows in 2019 and one last year and it seems that show by show the whole band grew tighter and more perfect. Due to Corona, the current tour had to be postponed several times and events shattered everyone’s plans to pieces and I really hoped I’d see at least one of their gigs this year for they really won me over during the past 15 or so years and the current line-up is perfect for me. LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE sold out the show within one day.
Due to the current situation, there were a few rules to be minded, but it seems that people already knew them by heart. Everybody was sitting on a bench at a table, wore a mask whenever moving around and of course you had to leave your contact data. I observed the show from various standing points and I must say that everybody sticked to the rules and made sure we all could have a good time together. I spotted familiar faces from all over Germany and even from Finland and Austria had travelled to Munich to see their favourite band live on stage. As soon as LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE hit the stage they were greeted by a loud and very motivated crowd. The setlist was a bit shorter than the set at the Olympic stadium, but once more the setlist covered songs from the band’s vast back catalogue from the early day to the current album ‘Bleeding the Stars’ and even two songs they hadn’t performed at Olympic stadium had made it on the setlist, ‘Remembrance Song’ from the album ‘Antiadore’ and ‘One Hopes Evening’ from ‘Ave End’, the latter a song that can rarely be found on a setlist.
Julian was as energetic as ever but unfortunately the F-word and the M***er word were back. Somewhere during the show, I stopped counting. The further the band proceeded through the setlist, the more energetic the crowd grew and you could feel people would have clearly preferred rocking out while standing instead of sitting on beer benches. A thing I really appreciated was that Julian did not hesitate to climb down from the stage to walk through the rows of benches while performing or stand on one of the tables amid the crowd. This fact brought even more energy to the crowd and the Munich crowd rocked out as good and heavy as the rules permitted. Due to the weather, the sound engineer had a hell of a job to do that night and depending on the point of standing or better said sitting, Julian sometimes was not clearly audible and the vocals were overlayed by the guitar. For Arena Süd’s standards, the sound was still very good, I have heard shows that sounded worse by far during the last year. One thing the band hadn’t brought to Olympic stadium was a fog machine and unfortunately, they had brought one tonight and the fog kind of remained under the tents roof. Due to this the lightshow was not as brilliant as last year and fog also is something that usually has a bad influences on the photographer’s work.
A fact that I really like about the setlist is, that the setlist offers plenty of occasion for every band member to show their skills and I must admit that I like the live version of ‘My Velvet Little Darkness’ a lot better than the one on the album (‘Filthy Notes for Frozen Hearts’) nowadays. Ilker Ersin who joined the band back in 2019 adds such a cool Metal bassline to it that the song has a lot more intensity and heaviness …and hey… we’re talking a song that was released 15 years ago… Way too soon it was time for ‘Ave End’, the last song on the regular setlist, but it was obvious that the band would not leave us without an encore. Looking at their faces during the show you could see that they loved to play for the Munich crowd and that the energetic performance had a strong impact on the people who gathered at Backstage to see LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE. I already wrote it in many reviews, but I can only repeat that by winning over Julian Larre as frontman, the band catapulted themselves on a new level and since they are in the studio at the moment, the fans and those the band will over for sure, can be looking forward to a blast of an album.
A very loud Munich audience demanded the encore as soon as LACRIMAS PROFUNDERE left the stage and of course they were ready to give us some more fantastic live music. When the band left the stage after ‘Father of Fate’ it was hard to say, who was happier, the band or the audience, it was definitely worth the wait for the show in Munich and I’m pretty sure I’ll see some familiar faces at the upcoming shows in Germany and Finland.
Setlist
01. Awake
02. Dead To Me
03. Her Occasion of Sin
04. Antiadore
05. Rememberance Song
06. Like Screams in Empty Halls
07. Celestite Woman
08. My Release in Pain
09. Again It’s Over
10. One Hopes Evening
11. The Kingdom Solictitude
12. My Velvet Little Darkness
13. The Letter
14. A Sigh
15. Ave End
---
16. A Pearl
17. Mother of Doom
18. Father of Fate
Rating
Music: 10
Performance: 10
Light: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 9.3 / 10
Comments powered by CComment