380


Munich



Melodic Death Metal... again one of these new definitions of the genre, however we understand this. But meanwhile we got tons of bands, exspecially coming from up north in Europe, who are devoted to this musical stylistic. 
Yeah well, there is something about it. So many of those Death Metal Bands sound to me just like a hell of a noise somethimes including this special kind of voic. But that's not for everyone. And to be honest, I wouldn't necesserally put Dark Tranquillity in this draw. This here is very hard metal, but still with some kind of melodic structure in it. And it is probaby this, what draws my attention. The band is almost for 20 years on the run. And from the original line up there is guitarist Niklas sundin and drummer Anders Jivarp, but alos Martin Henriksson, who went off inbetween, but now is back in the saddle. Martin Brändström came in 1998. And last but not least there is singer Mikael Stanne, who is with the group for 15 years now. And very new is bassist Daniel Antonsson. 
Dark Tanquillity have got 8 albums so far, the latest release is named 'Fiction'. - This here only for the generell knowledge.
Currently Dark Tranquillity are on tour together with supportslots 'Fear My Thoughts' and 'Poison Black. And tonight the threesome has arrived in Munich.

To be honest, I personally don't really get along with the opener..... 

This lot is also going for this style of Heavy Metal and they are from Germany. So the fit in pretty well in this band wagon. And they are not new on the horizon. Fear My Thoughts have played many shows with Exodus, Caliban and the Haunted in the past. So therefore you can feel a certain routine. But they are playing with a lot of selfconfidence and introduce their newest CD 'Isolation', of course with a hint to the merch stall in the back of the venue.

The gets well down at the aprox. 400 fans here, and I bet, that their record does not only get sold once...
http://www.fearmythoughts.com/


The next slot is honestly the very shortest, I've ever experienced live on stage - no kiddin'

I presume, about half of the fans here has waited for the second support act Poison Black. And they step a bit aside with their gotich-wave sound. Everybody knows, that this is the band of Ex-Sentenced Singer/guitarist Ville Laihiala. Actually he started this band here as a sideprojects. But since Sentenced is history, Posion Black is the main focus of Ville. 
This year the third album named ‚A Dead Heavy Day’ arrived, and instead of playing on all these Gothich meetings again, they rather prefer to tour with Dark Tranquillity. There is not much more to say about this band. - They come, they play one song, start the second one, - and interrupt the track after only 10 seconds. Ville tells the fans: "sorry my voice is gonne, I can't continue to play', puts his guitar down and is off again. This happens so fast, that some kids in the audiance are not even aware of what happened in the beginning. - But then the row starts, lots of beer is sailing on to the stage and whistling is never ending. But Poison Black don't come back and the stage is made up for Dark Tranquillity's set. - 
However, the first song didn't sound bad at all, but actually this guy should be able to tell before a show, whether he is able to sing or not and not first after 5 minutes stage time. Which made things worse. Though I got a view visual impressions, but they don't tell anything about the situation. 
So well, this has been Poison Black, - short and painful. And they do not leave a good memory here in Munich.
 
http://www.poisonblack.com/


But although the fans are still very angry about Poison Black, they forget about it quite quickly again, when Dark Tranquillity come on stage.

Because this band makes good for it a 100.000 times or more. One thing which si immidiately obvious, is the fact, that the swedish  headliner is so much more friendly and open, compared to their finnish ver cold collegues of Poison Black. You realize soon, that Mikael Stanne and his band have a lot of fun up there and in what they do. And if this is the case, then the aura is a much better one, and they are doing very well.
No, it definately ain't boring at all. They give everything and they have lots of edges in their musical structure. The setlist shows many old or hardly never played songs. Within 30 minutes or even shorter, everything happened before is forgotten and all 400 souls are moshing to the beat of Dark Tranquillity. 



I for myself do like the fact, that I do not get often such a photogenic object in front of my lense, like Mr. Stanne. And that not so much up to his beauty or what so ever, but more to his aura. I mean, having a icecube standing up there with no movement in the face ain't that much amusing is it. But this here is a pleasure to take pics of. And not only this, the sparkle is jumping across towards the fans and is infecting them with good mood.
You just gotta luv them up there. 

To make it short, the show of Dark Tranquillity is despite to their heavy sounds pure pleasure. By the way, there ain't no encore and Mikael says: 'no encore, because we don't like this going off stage and then coming back again. We rater stay and play a few more songs....
Yep of course, and despite the Poison Black incident, this evening is still becoming a good success. 
And yes, of course, please come back soon Dark Tranqulillity 
http://www.darktranquillity.com