reviewsarchiv 760

Every year again and again St.Niklas comes round bringing us a huge package of nuts and other goodies, at least for all those, who have hept a little child in themselves. And for us fans of the hardrockin' style, we get lots of those tour package including all those band-pralinee's flowing down at us like sweet chocolate and also as hot chilli pepper, smoothing our ears. Some are landing down the drain as well of course. But hold on, we got to get one thing right. St Niklas is coming in December and not in November.. but no problem as we have just celebrated this event a little earlier in form of the yearly - Into The Darkness Tour, where the participants are different every year. This time we got sort of a double headlining constellation including portugiese group Moonspell and swedish rockers Pain. Both rendeers are pushed on by Swallow The Sun, Lake Of Tears and Scar Of The Sun. And with such an engine nothing really can go wrong, can it....?!!! In addition there is the energy level the audiance usually provides. And those are aprox. 700 tonight here in Munich, who are taking a sunbath in our Backstage Werk in the imgainary Darkness atmosphere....

And this bath is started at 8.30 p.m. with a spicy aroma therapy namend Scar Of The Sun.

Those one's of course suffer the usual fate of openers within big band packages...getting a little nicklected.
At this time most of the visitors here are still standing outside the main door, enjoying one or the other cigarette.
And only very few fans do actually pay attention to this greek band, who really try hard to please us.
Scar of The Sun are: Terry (Vocals/keys/programming/Manager/Webmaster), Alex (Git), Greg (Git), Panagiotis (Bass) and Thanos (Drums), who have put out their first full album named 'A Series Of Unfortunate Concurrencies'

And they are already quite a while in the biz after more than 20 years of existence counting eight studioalbums and two compilations so far. The swedish guys are going for Gothic Metal. And also in this case the frontman is holding the line in his hands. No good for us photographers is the huge portion of dry ice - fog. But well - nothing we can do about it At least the places shows more fans meanwhile in here. And it is known, that Lake of Tears have lots of fans, who are coming just because of them...

But tongight there is not so much enthusiasm shown by our heroes here, as they apparently have decided for a more laid back way tonight. To get it straight: there ain't no much movement up there and the famous sparkle is missing. So - also this band leaves us again with a rather mixed feeling. .
http://www.lakeoftears.net/

Let's get to Swallow The Sun, another scandinavian band.

These guys are around for 12 years now within the Melodic-Death-Doom - or what soever - circles of this world.
Five studioalbums are the result so far, whereby the latest longplayer 'Emerald Forest And The Blackbird' has just been released this year. Reason enough to promote this by extensive touring. And now for the first time tonight it rather gets enthusiastic here within the, meanwhile well filled venue, and the party is slowly heading towards to it's peak- Next to new pearls. also the very old one's got on the setlist. But as we say so? - Allways when it get's best, you should stop. In our case we have to, as the time schedule is rather tight.

Swallow The Sun are the first participants in this tour package, who could manage to wake up every single fan up finally. And this is the best start for the first of two headliners. Whoever wants to know more about Swallow The Sun - please click at: http://www.swallowthesun.net/site/

Moonspell are familiar to a wider range of fans, also for those, who are going for another metal style...

DThe Portugiese are going on now for 23 years. And within this long time they have put out10 studioalbums. The latest release is named 'Omega White' and was put out this year. Most of all it's Fernando Ribeiro, who is the flagship. He is also the only one, who is left from the original. But never mind, he is the focus of the group anyway.
Moonspell have to take an effort now to please the expectations of everybody, after Swallow The Sun have spoiled the fans. And so the show starts in dark blue atmosphere and with a mask. It does leave some impression indeed.

The Name stands for quality, as we say so. And that' how it works for Moonspell, who deliver a solid clean show, started with the song 'Axis Mundi' from the new album 'Alpha Noir', who is actually the main focus tonight. Inbetween we get to hear classics such as the beautiful 'Opium'. - No, honestly, there is nothing to complain and the fans are grateful. And again there is this question in the air.... can it get any better tonight?
http://moonspell.com/

And yes it can... as Pain are the uncrowned kings of present hardrock and prove now within the next 70 minutes their brilliance.... (unfortunately even the headliner doesn't get more than this time, because of so many bands at one night)

Nicely dressed in a up to date fashion madhouse jacket, Mr.Tägtgren catches our attention from the very first second. This good man owns an aura which is so huge, as Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Elvis together. Yeah well we don't wanna overdo it, whereby this aura is not so much focused on visuall aspects, but more on individual personality. This boy with the deep eye rings is what you call a wonderchild in music, an allround genius... By the way, the just mentioned tearbags below his eyes have somehow vanished since last time... whatever he did... Never mind...
Live on Stage Peter is a real orginal, as much as he is a great songwriter, producer and simply a great musician.
With Pain he has created the melodic opposite of Hypocracy back in 1996. Past year he put out the seventh album named 'You Only Live Twice'.-

The big plus Pain has got, despite the heavyness, are the melodies, which invite you to sing along and get stuck in your ear shell. And that's the most important thing for an artist, that he stay's in people's mind. A famous german jazz musican told me recently: it is not difficult to write extraordinary music, but it is difficutl to write a smashhit single, which doesn't sound like 20 other songs. And he is absolutely right. Peter Tägtgren has managed to do so in Hardrock... Pain is literatually him, and he is Pain... The rest of the musicians are employed for the tour as usual...

–in each case the place is boiling - such as last time next door in the Backstage Halle, with songs such as 'Dirty Woman', 'Same Old Song', 'The Great Pretender' or the encore 'Let Me Out', and not to forget the wonderful 'Shut Your Mouth'.-
And though this time Pain's performance doesn't come across that intensive as last time, but it is still a unique experience, where everybody gets pleased completely without doubts. The peak has been reached and the evening comes to an end around midnight. And the Into The Darkness Tour 2012 is once again a great success here in Munich
with a longlasting echo.
What else can I say... Pain forever - it doesn't need more...
http://www.painworldwide.com