Tonight
is a cold wet night in Birmingham as the heavens
open so does the O2 academy’s doors, they
welcome the eager crowd inside to a night of metal
and psychobilly rock.
First up are Florida metalers Iced Earth, who
slowly walk out to some random intro music and
blast into dark riffs with haunting vocals of
epic proportion. They play a steady stream of
songs including, Plagues Of Babylon and Dark Saga
Which go down well, the crowd might not have been
expecting something this heavy as the support
but they’re enjoying it. Iced Earth come
across as proper old school metal mixed with a
bit of the darker side, like ghost, they use the
occasional backing of religious tones but this
is just to add layers to the songs, they rock
out load with guitar harmonies and bass drops
that smash into your ear drums. They are relentless
and seem almost never ending as one song flows
into the next but towards the end of their 40
minute set is a slower song called Watching Over
Me which changes the setting, if only for 5 minutes,
but during this time singer Stuart Block takes
the crowd on an epic journey with his incredible
vocal range, he goes low and deep and then up
to bee gees style highs, its incredible to see,
and once this comes to an end they wrap up their
set with the self-titled Iced Earth. They get
this crowd pumped and ready for the main act,
with their heavy riffs and rocking solos it’s
easy to see that they're heavy, they're metal
and they're proud!
Volbeat are the main act and come out slowly as
they start playing the intro to Hallelujah Goat
which gets the crowd pumped from the start. This
merry band of Danish rockers have been about since
2001 and have plenty
of experience in playing gigs of all sizes and
so know how to work the stage and give the audience
the best experience. The stage layout is great
as the back of the stage is covered in speaker
cabs with the drums perched up in the centre,
and instead of using all the space and making
it so you can’t see the back of the stage
they only use half meaning that although it’s
a massive venue it gives them more off an intimate
feel as they’re all close to the crowd.
They continue to make the crowd feel like part
of the show as instead off singer/guitarist Micheal
Poulsen staying in the centre of the stage during
the songs, they have 3 mics all set up the same
across the stage so he can go and sing at either
side and this means that all the band move around
the stage during
every break between lyrics so everyone can get
a great view of every member, which is something
that’s simple and yet I haven’t seen
another band do this! They play a massive set
of 21 songs that covers all 5 albums along with
a few cover songs like You Suffer by Nalpalm Death.
The set includes songs such as; Radio Girl, Sad
Mans Tongue, Heaven Nor Hell, 16 Dollars, Fallen,
Pearl Hart and Still Counting.
The sound of the instruments is clear and crisp
and you would believe that you were listening
to the recordings instead of having a band play
in front of you, this is due to their meticulous
sound checking before they come on stage, as now
we have digital sound mixing it’s easy to
do a sound check in the day and leave the levels
ready, but Volbeats engineers want to make sure
everything is perfect and so do a pretty lengthy
check before they came on stage, but this was
worth it as it is so crisp and clear. They look
like they love what they’re doing as they
trounce around the stage with huge smiles on their
faces, this is reciprocated when the crowd sings
and enjoys themselves back, its been a long time
since I’ve seen a band and crowd work so
well together but Volbeat have something special
which means the crowd lap up everything they say
and do. Poulsen takes time to talk to the crowd
in-between songs, by saying the normal thanks
for coming out but with other little tid bits
about Johnny Cash and how he can’t really
play much slayer on an acoustic guitar. They wrap
up their set with an encore of Doc
Holliday a cover of Dusty Springfield’s
I Only Want To Be With You and Pool of Booze,
Booze, Booze.
Tonight’s gig has been great, an interesting
heavy start with Iced Earth turned into a more
rocking intricate end with Volbeat. It’s
clear to see why Volbeat are putting out a live
tour edition of their latest album at the moment,
when they sound this good live it’s hard
not to make a recording off it, so go and check
them out on one of the remaining dates, or if
you can’t get out then go and pick up a
copy of Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies tour
edition on November 5th!
Iced Earth 3.5/5
Volbeat 4.5/5
Review By James Daly
Photos By James Daly And Claire Whelpton
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