“That trumpet is amazing…” are some of the words I thought I would never utter.
Yet here we are listening once again to the amazing The Gathering from the Netherlands. This time with Silje Wergeland as leading vocalist who in my opinion is doing a great job.
With over nine minutes this is a long song but I think it is a lovely somehwat trippy voyage that needs more exposure.
The “Skeletons & Majesties” set has been recorded in 2011 during a concert in Pratteln (Switzerland). It was released on DVD in November 2012 and uploaded to Youtube in 2020 by earMUSIC.
You’ll find links to the individual tracks of the DVD at the bottom. All of these are earMUSIC uploads so I expect them to stay for the time to come. The track featured here is Gamma Ray covering the song “Gamma Ray” by the krautrock band Birth Control.
You all have seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer about 20 years ago, right? I’m not sure why I actually remember this but the only time I previously came across Morcheeba was a little bit in one of the episodes of that show (“Passion” S2E7 for what it’s worth).
Somehow youtube -in all it’s wisdom- decided to present me the video below for tonight. It happens to be a full 90 minute live set of Morcheeba recorded by Rockpalast in Germany. Very relaxing and very chill… have fun!
What a year this has been so far! I won’t go into politics and I don’t wan’t to talk about Covid-19. Let’s just hope we all get through this situation and stay healthy.
It’s hard to imagine that the last concert I have been to has been almost 10 months ago. I still have the pile of tickets for the concerts I planned on going to throughout this year (Judas Priest, Nightwish, Iron Maiden, etc.). Everything is cancelled or postponed and I am not sure when we can go to concerts again.
It seems this year quite a number of bands and labels have decided to release older live concerts (complete DVDs) on youtube. I’ll post a few links to some nice performances soon.
Compared to other years I didn’t try many different new guitars. More or less by accident I found a new favourite guitar, a Rock’n’Roll Relics Heartbreaker. It’s fairly light and has a dry earthy tone suited very well for hard rock and high gain.
Throughout the last months I had a couple of guitars checked and set up by a local luthier. I found it’s money well spent having a professional do all the work on the guitars. This will remain an ongoing “project” as there are some more guitars that need all some more TLC.
While meeting up with the luthier we often talked about what a custom guitar for me could be. It took quite a few iterations but finally we ended up with a custom design based on a Telecaster. I’ll add some info later on as the build of the guitar is already in progress.
The last concert for 2019 featured three established Death Metal bands as Hypocrisy (hypocrisy.cc) and Arch Enemy (archenemy.net/en/) joined Amon Amarth (amonamarth.com) on their Berserker tour.
It was a great concert to end the 2019 season with. I’ve seen Arch Enemy two times before and it was always a blast. Hypocrisy and Amon Amarth didn´t disappoint as well.
As an Icing on the cake a couple of days later the show in Oberhausen was recorded by German television. Hypocrisy was not recorded, but the full sets of Arch Enemy and Amon Amarth can be viewed until 01/15/2020 here:
https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/094081-001-A/amon-amarth-live-in-oberhausen/
https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/094081-002-A/arch-enemy/
As these links are going to be dead in two weeks I’ve also included a few other live snipplets from previous released concerts below.
The first one is a live clip of Hypocrisy performing “Fractured Millenium” (Live DVD “Hell Over Sofia”):
Next in line is Arch Enemy. The clip below was recorded live 2016 on Wacken and is part of the “As the Stages Burn!” DVD. The song is called “Nemesis”:
And finally here is a video of Amon Amarth performing “Twilight of the Thunder God” live:
Just short of a one year hiatus I’m back in the mood for some music. As we’re heavily approaching winter around here the “Metal Season” begins. Yesterday I made it to the first show for this season featuring Delain as headliner and Arkona as support act.
Delain (delain.nl) is a Dutch female fronted metal band that I have first heared about more than a decade ago when they released their first album. I’ve also seen them live when they were still support act for bands like Within Temptation. Today they are headlining their own tour and they are still a great band to see live.
According to Wikipedia Delain is a band in the genre of “Symphonic Metal”; personally I think what Delain does is much more straightforward, fun and party than what I would associate with that term.
The clip below is the official teaser song for their DVD. The song is called “Fire with Fire”:
The support act yesterday was the Russian band Arkona (arkona-russia.com/en/). They are fairly unknown here but actually they are an established band with seven albums up their sleeve. They are roughly in the same genre (pagan/folk metal) as Eluveitie but with a slightly heavier and darker approach. It’s also a great live band that was fun to experience.
The following clip is from the release party of their latest album. Apparently the song is called “V Pogonie Za Beloj Ten’Yu”.
That night was a great start into the season. I’m looking forward to see both bands again at some point in the future.
Tomorrow I am off to see Doro (Pesch) once more. I’m expecting all the classics.
Kai Hansen is one of the founding members of Helloween, one of the leading bands in the German Power Metal / Speed Metal scene of the 1980s. After leaving the band in the late 1980s he founded Gamma Ray and participated on many other metal albums since then.
The track “Fire and Ice” was first released on Kai Hansens “XXX – Three Decades In Metal” album. The live version below was recorded at Wacken in 2016 or rather 2017. Kai is accompanied by Clementine Delauney on this track.
As a bonus I include another live clip from the same concert. The song is called “Victim of Fate” and was featured on 1985s “Walls of Jericho” album by Helloween. As such it is a classic of German Speed and Power Metal featuring brutal riffs and a great slow bit with guitar solo in the middle of the song.
This is the kind of music that about 30 years ago made me the metal fan that I still am today. So much for going through a phase…
If you have been following me for a while you may have noticed that I like dark and gloomy metal, but that I also really enjoy some good old 70s rock. Especially the obvious classics like Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, but also German Krautrock and modern bands inspired by that music.
If you also like that kind of music, I think I have found a new(ish) treat. Wucan is a fresh band based in eastern Germany that does some stuff which is heavily inspired by Krautrock and also international classics of that 70s era.
The following is an official live set (about 58 minutes) uploaded once again by WDR Rockpalast, which is a classic in it’s own. I’m not sure if it is available in all countries, but there are other uploads to be found on youtube (which I’m not going to link to, but they are easily found).
I am buried under work right now, but there is nothing like some Swedish melodic Death Metal to keep the spirits up:
dingens2k 