Der Original-Artikel wurde bei stage2web veröffentlicht. Hier ist die englische Version.
The original article can be found under the link above (in german). Here you find the english version of the report.
Four bands that you would not expect to see on tour together, but with a common mission: united in music, united in spirit, and actually we are all the same. That this was not just a loose promise, could be seen on the Renegades tour of our German metal heroes EQUILIBRIUM. The masters of the genre added three more bands to the line-up: OCEANS (Post Death Metal), NAILED TO OBSCURITY (Melodic Death-Doom Metal) and LORD OF THE LOST (Dark Rock/Gothic Metal). But maybe it was exactly this mixture that made the concert so very special.
On 07.02.2020, they came to Cologne. It was day 20 of the tour, which was criss-crossing Europe. So the musicians, especially EQUILIBRIUM and LORD OF THE LOST, had already done a decent workload. The concert in Cologne was the fourth of the week and the bands had just flown in from Scandinavia. So the fans had to be prepared for the possibility of signs of fatigue. But that didn’t stop them from being ready at the Essigfabrik an hour before admission. Even those who didn’t have a ticket for a Meet&Greet (and the author knows this very well because she was there way too early herself). However, due to the band selection, one had to expect a relatively large crowd and those who wanted to be in the first row preferred to come too early.
Moreover, the early arrival was worth it if you wanted to see all four bands since the programme was quite sporty: admission at 5:50 pm, start at 6:10 pm. Those who know the Essigfabrik know that admission can sometimes be a bit delayed due to the narrowness of the gate. And with four bands scheduled, there is usually not much playing time left in the overall schedule for the first two.
This became clear with the opener OCEANS: the Essigfabrik was maybe only half full when the guys entered the stage. OCEANS is a very young band: only founded in 2018, with their debut album „The Sun and the Cold“ just out and not too much stage experience yet, a lot of attention came upon them with this tour. And they did very well. The combination of atmospheric, a bit gloomy mood and powerful riffs, plus the haunting, emotionally charged voice of singer Timo Rotten convinced right away and also the interaction with the audience worked out skillfully. The applause for OCEANS showed that they had made friends and so one can only hope to see the guys on stage more often.
As already written, the first two bands did not have much playing time and so OCEANS already left the stage after 30 minutes to make room for the second support. At 7 pm the show continued with NAILED TO OBSCURITY.
The band has existed since 2005 and can look back on four albums. The latest one, „Black Frost“, was released the year before and was the first album under the Nuclear Blast label. The East Frisians put on a solid show. Singer Raimund Ennenge seemed a bit taciturn in his communication with the audience, but first of all these are East Frisians (and North Germans are usually not very talkative) and secondly NAILED TO OBSCURITY only had 30 minutes to convince the audience. But they succeeded very well with their mixture of new and old songs.
The audience was waiting for the next two bands. Right on time for the start of LORD OF THE LOST, the hall was full of people. And that there were quite a few fans of the Hamburg guys among them could already be heard at the first note of the intro: it got loud.
The order of the guys‘ stage appearance was a bit unusual: Niklas and Gared first, as usual, then Chris and finally Klaas and Pi. In terms of outfit and make-up, everything was the same as usual: Elaborately made up, conspicuously dressed in glittering, idiosyncratic outfits (many of the female fans present probably wished they had legs like our Lord in his fishnet stockings), the Lords put on a show that was, as always, energetic and audience-oriented. A lot of interaction with each other, a lot of communication towards the audience and a real sports programme on stage (respect for the squat jumps, Mr Harms) have become a trademark of their performances. Unfortunately, and this is a big fat unfortunately that hurts the author’s heart a little, neither the outfits nor the make-up really stood out, as the lighting design left them in the dark. Klaas mostly stood in his rather dark corner, flying and jumping around the room as wildly as ever, but you could hardly see it. Also the sound left some room for improvement and it could be heard during the singing that this concert was not at the beginning of the tour. But there are no bad LotL concerts: even under adverse circumstances (just think back to last year’s Amphi, where a real thunderstorm broke out of the sky at Lord’s playing time) the guys put on an excellent show.
Even though the Lords can quickly sell out venues like the Essigfabrik even on headlining tours, they were not the heroes of the evening this time. The heroes came at last: the metal masters EQUILIBRIUM.
For 20 years now, the men have been thrilling the metal scene with their self-proclaimed epic metal. With „Renegades“, they published their 7th album last year, which made it into the Top 20 of the German and Swiss album charts and was only slightly „worse“ than its predecessor „Armageddon“. The concert started with „Renegades“. However, clear vocals could not be expected this evening. „We are all sick“, Robse told his fans. But it did not matter, it was fine like that (according to hearsay, one or the other fan wasn’t enthusiastic about clear vocals on the album anyway). And there was no sign of sickness at all: there was pure energy on stage, which was directly transferred to the audience. Wall of Death, Circle Pit and Moshpit were now part of the audience’s standard repertoire of movements – from the beginning of the concert to the end! There were no signs of fatigue among the fans, so Robse only asked in between if anyone had hurt themselves. Meanwhile, on stage, the band happily went through their musical history. The fact that the band is not afraid of unusual sounds in the scene (terms like electronic and, even worse, dubstep appear) was evident in several songs, but obviously met with great enthusiasm from the audience. They only stopped for a moment when the band suddenly left the stage at 10:30 pm. And „suddenly“ really meant suddenly. It got dark, the guys were gone. Of course there were obligatory shouts of „encore“ and of course EQUILIBRIUM came back. The previous had only been the „warm-up phase“ and now the concert was really getting started. And they really made the Essigfabrik glow for another 30 min. But all good things have come to an end sooner or later. At this concert, it was a good end.
Four bands that you would not expect to see on tour together, but with a common mission: united in music, united in spirit, and actually we are all the same. And it works.
Imago Libri 