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Zeche, Bochum, Germany
7th January 2010
Stratovarius, Mystic Prophecy, Tracedawn

The New Year for us started with lots of snow as usual causing severe troubles at our German Railways. On a musical note, the year had Finnish STRATOVARIUS for us in stock as the first show, supported by MYSTIC PROPHECY and TRACEDWN, the latter of which started much earlier than planned.


Tracedawn

TRACEDAWN found together by the endless means of the internet in summer 2006 and soon started recording their first demo with the title ‘Path of Reality’. The demo met with positive critics and roused the interest of many labels, one of which would sign them in 2007. The first, self-titled debut album came out in August 2008, to be followed by their second one ‘Ego Anthem’ in 2009. TRACEDAWN is Antti Lappalainen (vocals), Tuomas Yli-Jaskari (guitar), Roni Seppänen (guitar), Vili Itäpelto (keys), Pekko Heikkilä (bass) and Perttu Kurttila (drums). http://www.withoutwalls.albumit.fi/ / http://www.myspace.com/tracedawn



Music & Performance
As we entered the room, their concert steered towards its end already. The first thing we saw was the quite young band wildly head banging to a thrashing beat with a couple of people in the audience following them suit. TRACEDAWN’s vocalist mostly kept grunting the lyrics and only occasionally switched to a very low, clean chant. Barely ten minutes later had the set already ended with the savage ‘Without Walls’ and moderate farewell applause from the crowd.

Rating
Music: 4
Performance: 6
Sound: 6
Light: 7
Total: 5.4 / 10




Mystic Prophecy

The band has been founded by singer Roberto D. Liapakis together with a friend of his in 2001. Soon other musicians would jump on the train and complete the line-up which generated the first albums, starting with ‘Vengeance’ in the founding year. The second one ‘Regressus’ followed about two years later. At the same time, the band increased their live activities considerably. Just one later, they already have the follow-up ‘Never-Ending’ in stored to bless their growing fan base with fresh material. As of 2009, MYSTIC PROPHECIES can look back on a discography of 6 full-length albums. MYSTIC PROPHECY is Roberto Dimitri Liapakis (vocals), Markus Pohl (guitar), Constantine (guitar), Connie Andreszka (bass) and Stefan Dittrich (drums). http://www.mysticprophecy.net/ / http://www.myspace.com/mysticprophecy



Music & Performance
As next one, the bill mentioned the German formation MYSTIC PROPHECY whose pompous introduction would soon break upon the crowd after the little changeover. The had just taken the stage as they already started to rock ahead with the opener ‘Across The Gates of Hell’, which is living in large parts on double bass attacks. The following ‘Dark Forces’ consequentially kept jumping between blast fires and quite standard rhythmic accentuation, while singer Roberto volunteered his vocal  qualities to a crowd that was more willing to participate. It’s still been far from being all too enthusiastic though. Enthusiasm, and I’m speaking of pure enthusiasm, came up a little later in the set, particularly with the second last song, announced like “Who doesn’t know that song isn’t really Metal”, but even if you’ve just rare contact with that scene you’ll recognize BLACK SABBATH’s ‘Paranoid’ quickly by its riffing and vocal lines. The mood broke through the roof, really.



‘Savage Souls’ was the band’s goodbye title after good 50 minutes, driven by a mid-paced drum beat. Afterwards, the crowd gave them their farewell bid with a warmer applause than they did before.

Setlist
01. Across the Gates of Hell
02. Dark Forces
03. Demons Crown
04. To the Devil I Pray
05. We Kill You Die
06. Sacrifice Me
07. Satanic Curses
08. Demons Blood
09. Evil Empires
10. Paranoid (Black Sabbath Cover)
11. Savage Souls

Rating
Music: 6
Performance: 7
Sound: 7
Light: 7
Total: 6.6 / 10




Stratovarius

STRATOVARIUS is a Power Metal band hailing from Finland. The band name derives from a fusion of the Latinized last name of violin crafter Antonio Stradivari and the famous E-Guitar model Stratocoaster. It’s a symbol for the combination of classical music with Metal you can find in many songs of this band. The band formed in 1984 and released their first demo recording 3 years later. Their music, initially inspired by such acts as OZZY OSBOURNE and BLACK SABBATH then developed to a more melodic and classically influenced sound which is the band’s trademark until today. 12 successors would follow their debut ‘Fright Night’ from 1989. Their newest album ‘Polaris’ has been released in May 2009. STRATOVARIUS is Timo Kotipelto (vocals), Matias Kupiainen (guitar), Jens Johansson (keys), Lauri Porra (bass) and Jörg Michael (drums). http://www.stratovarius.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/officialstratovarius



Music & Performance
The free space filled up quickly with lots of fans as the stage was prepared for the final act of the evening. Again, the show kicked off with a sublime, rather classical introduction that ran into ‘Hunting High and Low’ from the album ‘Infinite’. The melodiosity took a greater part in their music than it did with the stuff of the support bands and vocally, singer Timo excelled all of its predecessors already in the first minutes. The audience, all riled up, was with them right away and had nothing against travelling with their favourite band at the ‘Speed of Light’ afterwards. The song did its name real justice having a fast pace. The biblical ‘Kiss of Judas’ turned into an atmospherically dense experience and placed a greater emphasis on the keys. With the next song, we were following them into the ‘Deep Unknown’ to be followed by ‘Million Light Years’ with a very intense bass line.



'Winter Skies' brought one amazing showcase of Jens Johansson’s skills on the keyboard which, like known from NIGHTWISH, had been built up in a sloping position. Jens’ fingers flew over the board, no matter if normal sounds came out of it or if it simulated a guitar. After ‘Phoenix’, Matias and Lauri could show their capabilities on Bass and guitar. It’s been really amazing to see Lauri creating an increasingly wide spectrum of sounds with it for me. With ‘Eagleheart’, the set found its end, but no one was really thinking about leaving already and demanded an encore. The deserved reward came with the two tracks ‘Forever’ and ‘Black Diamond’ closing the evening for good and releasing a happy audience into the very cold night outside.



Setlist
01. Hunting High and Low
02. Speed of Light
03. The Kiss of Judas
04. Deep Unknown
05. Million Light Years
06. Winter Skies
07. Phoenix
08. Guitar/Bass solo
09. Destiny
10. Forever is Today
11. Twilight Symphony
12. Eagleheart
---
13. Forever
14. Black Diamond

Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 7.6 / 10



All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)
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