Eluveitie, Lacuna Coil, Infected Rain – Ategnatos-Tour – Turbinenhalle Oberhausen – 09.11.2019

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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.

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Metal from Moldova, rock metal from Italy, folk metal from Switzerland – in this reading, the band line-up seemed much more coordinated than if you just looked at the names: INFECTED RAIN, LACUNA COIL and ELUVEITIE. The three are currently on tour together, sharing LACUNA COIL and ELUVEITIE as headliners. And that this mixture actually works quite well, you could experience on Saturday, 09.11.2019, in the Turbinenhalle 2 in Oberhausen.

Admission was scheduled for 6:30 pm, start of the concert at 7:10 pm. The show was probably not sold out, but getting to the venue can sometimes take an extremely long time due to traffic. Fortunately, on that Saturday, half an hour before admission, it went really quickly and the car park in front of Hall 2 was still very manageable. But that changed rapidly. While standing in the queue in front of the hall, you could watch the car park being filled up at a rapid pace – with cars and the ever-lengthening queue that skilfully snaked its way between the cars. Since the weather was not exactly the hottest, everyone was quite happy when the doors opened.

INFECTED RAIN started the evening at 7:10 pm. The metal band from Moldova was founded in 2008, but in the first years they were mainly known in their home country, before they went on a major tour through Romania with their first album “Asylum” (2011) and then also through Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria in 2013. In 2014, the second album “Embrace Eternity” was released and a European tour through 12 countries followed, which also made INFECTED RAIN known in our country. With album number three, everyone knew: you should really have them on your radar. They went on tour with LACUNA COIL, which made INFECTED RAIN even more famous, and in October of this year, the band around Lena Scissorhands followed up with album number four,” Endorphin”. Anyone who did not know INFECTED RAIN before has been a fan since last Saturday at the latest: Lena and her boys thrilled the hall from the very first moment. Not only because of the excellent music, or the pretty Lena, or her terrific singing skills, but also because of the charismatic characters who were on stage and had the audience wrapped around their fingers in no time. Most of the attention was drawn by Lena with her white polka dot dress and the colourful dreads, but the show of the boys was also impressive. This was no inexperienced, small support group on stage, but an already experienced band that knew exactly what the audience wanted and delivered exactly that with a lot of fun, joy and passion. It was a little sad when suddenly it was „Last Song“ … Definitely not the last performance of INFECTED RAIN.

After a 20-minute break, the show continued at 8:10 pm – with none other than LACUNA COIL. You could write a whole novel about the Italians, if you consider that they have been around since 1994 (first as Sleep of Right, then as Ethereal, finally changing their name to LACUNA COIL in 1996). The band can look back on 9 studio albums. In October they released “Black Anima”, their latest work, which seemed to be a lot heavier than its predecessors. As far as shows are concerned, one could say that if you have seen one show by the Italians, you have seen them all. Admittedly, there was not much of a change from previous LACUNA COIL concerts, but since the shows are always brilliant, that was not really a bad thing. In Oberhausen, Cristina and her boys had the audience in their grip again and almost every note was celebrated. And what you have not seen too often so far: Cristina can jump really high from a standing position!!! It was pleasing that the drummer change was very well chosen. The fans already miss Ryan Blake Folden a bit, but Richard Meiz has integrated himself very well into the band and at least tries to animate the audience as much as his predecessor did. There is still some room for improvement, but Richard has also drummed his way straight into the fans‘ hearts. What else can be said about LACUNA COIL’s show? Excellent light, likeable people, great songs.  Talking about songs: the setlist contained old favourites that should not be missing (like „Blood, Tears, Dust“, „Enjoy the Silence“, „Heaven’s a Lie“ and of course „Nothing stands in our way“), but also songs from the new album could be heard live in Oberhausen (like „Layers of Time“ and „Reckless“).  There was a lot of singing along and even with the new songs you could hear absolute certainty of the lyrics from the audience. Was there anything negative? Yes – after all, the gig had to be over at some point … unfortunately.

Fortunately, that was not the end of the evening. One band was still missing – ELUVEITIE. Admittedly, some may have missed the fact that the Swiss folk metallers were very successful and therefore rightly had the headlining position for the concerts in Germany (on the rest of the tour, this position went to LACUNA COIL). And for those who did not know yet: ELUVEITIE have been around since 2002 and can look back on 8 studio albums, 3 live albums, various singles and videos. The studio albums regularly reach top ten positions in the album charts in Germany and Switzerland (“Origins” even made it to number 1 in Switzerland in 2014). “Ategnatos” had been out since April, but a tour was overdue. As a newcomer to ELUVEITIE, one could be a little overwhelmed at first by the amount of people suddenly appearing on stage, but quickly (apologies to the rest of the band) Chrigel and especially Fabienne cought everyone’s eye. Especially (apologies to Chrigel) Fabienne. No matter what song: if she started to sing, everyone cheered. Clear and precise, sometimes tender, sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes hard: Fabienne had the whole palette and knew how to use it. But of course she was not the only one to deliver a great show: the rest of the men and women also helped to ensure that there was never a dull moment. Apropos no boredom: the tarpaulin hanging at the beginning, which covered the back part and thus the drums, did not want to work as it was supposed to and had to be temporarily tied to the side before it could be taken down manually between two songs. This caused a bit of amusement among the band and the audience. And then we could finally see the whole stage, including drummer Alain Ackermann. The set offered everything an ELUVEITIE fan’s heart could wish for (judging by the volume of the sing-along). Of course, there were various songs from “Ategnatos”, but also from “Helvetios”, “Origins” and other albums. Especially nice: for one song, the audience was allowed to decide in which language it should be sung. They did not had to think or vote long: the people wanted „De Ruf vo de Bärge“ in Swiss German and Fabienne delivered it directly. For this concert, too, only one criticism came to mind: it had to end at some point.

As already written at the beginning: the selection of bands read somehow strange. In retrospect, however, one can only say: it worked. Musically, INFECTED RAIN, LACUNA COIL and ELUVEITIE lined up well and the fans celebrated each band in equal measure. Ergo: an all-round successful evening with three great bands and many lovely people.

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Set-Lists