It’s been a pretty epic weekend of live music in London with some huge names passing through, and that doesn’t let up up Sunday evening with the symphonic metal frenzy of Delain + The Gentle Storm.
[date]25th October 2015[/date]
[venue]o2 Islington Academy[/venue]
[city]London, UK[/city]
[support_bands]Courtesans, The Gentle Storm[/support_bands]
Courtesans
I had known absolutely nothing prior to the band before the evening, so it’s a chance to give an impression to the early arrivals in the audience.
Courtesans are an all female quartet that upon their opening track, defined themselves as playing a brand of alternative rock music. First noticeable trait about this band is that they definitely radiated some natural attitude that synced performance and music very well, and it’s definitely clear that they have created a direction for themselves. However this band does seem relatively new to the scene, and musically a few screws need to be tightened.
Seemingly taking influence from bands like Hole, the mid-tempo rock puts strong emphasis on vocal lines that were often out of key on the live delivery. Fix up that and you potentially have a strong unit with these guys. Look forward to seeing how they develop in the future.
The Gentle Storm
After many years of being a The Gathering fan, I can finally see Anneke van Giersbergen perform live! I respect her as being one of the finest vocalists in metal, as anything she does she seems to pull off with technical refinement will delivering the sweetest of charm. Although it’s not The Gathering, tonight she brings her new project The Gentle Storm to the live stage.
On the opening of ‘The Heart of Amsterdam‘ the myth comes alive that van Giersbergen is simply as good live as she is on record – an image of a true professional. Not one note was lost in the complexities of the music and the sweet stage presence almost instantly captured the hearts of the onlookers.
The band continued to perfectly showcase tracks from the The Gentle Storm project, and much to my personal excitement treated us to a couple The Gathering songs on ‘Eleanor‘ and ‘Strange Machines‘. With van Giersbergen’s darling stage presence the performance was such a positive spectacle and really quite the appropriate ending to a week, and we can go into Monday with a feel-good aura.
Delain
Delain clearly made quite the impression at Bloodstock over summer. The venue tonight is completely sold out and packed to the rafters. To be honest this is deservedly so, as the band always hit form in the UK and have put on some monumental shows in the past year – tonight is proof that Delain are gaining a lot of traction as a force in the symphonic metal genre.
There is a very excited audience to see this band tonight, with the balcony draped in custom made Delain flags with backdrops of colours from around Europe, and some very anxious looking fans filling up the front rows. As soon as the lights dim and the venue is filled with the sound of ‘Go Away‘ there is an eruption of pure glee, especially from the younger fans in the audience.
The sound engineer tonight deserves a huge pat on the back as this has been a very noticeable thing about the evenings performances, being that every mix was downright perfect for all bands, and that all notes big and small had a huge impact in Delain’s performance. The dark notes of ‘Get The Devil Out of Me‘ brought the onslaught of heavy, while tracks like ‘Lullaby‘ brought the sweet and solemn atmosphere that resonated even better than on record.
The band members tonight were putting their heart and soul into their performance, bringing unparalleled physical energy matched up with their instrumental ability. Audience energy was paired up with the band in tracks like ‘April Rain‘ and ‘The Gathering‘ with every word muttered by the 800 or so in attendance. We were even treated to a brand new Delain song under the title of ‘Turn The Lights Out‘, prepared for the upcoming album to be released sometime in 2016.
Delain owned the evening tonight, and it is now very clear that the band have a very dedicated UK fan base. As they bowed out with their signature track ‘We Are The Others‘, it dictates that this band are only going to get bigger in this country, and it wouldn’t shock me if the next tour we see this band sell out bigger venues. Pure symphonic brilliance from the Dutch maestros tonight, and is the icing on the cake for a great evening!
