Of course, once we got in we find that the merch stall doesnh't actually have any Sigh CD's. I personally find this particular oversight a little odd. How many concerts have you ever been to where the headline band didn't have any of their own stuff on sale? I mean, sure they had a T shirt with the logo on, but I was already wearing one of those. Only mine was older and therefore more necro. This was all rather annoying as I had yet to pick up their latest CD or the reissue of the first album and was thus assuming I could pick them up here. Still, I guess thats why god invented amazon.
The next shock came in the form of a bearded A-San, who I hadn't seen in years. Still, there were 2 bands I'd never heard of playing as well, and if there's one thing he specializes in it's bands you've never heard of..
First up were Wodensthrone, who played a rather good sort of Drudkhy style of black metal, which I rather enjoyed. However they didn't play it for vey long, having a startlingly short set of about 3 songs or so. I know this type of thing can wibble on a bit, but still, wasn't expecting things to be so... perfunctory. Next up were Winterfylleth, who were sort of similar only different. Now, I can't fault them on any paart of their performance. They were technically competent, played good tunes and were generally very metal. However I will say that I now know why we have corpsepaint. Put simply, when one is being very metal one is likely to undergo certain facial contortions. The corpsepaint helps to make such displays appear more metal than may otherwise be the case. Seriously, for all the blistering black metal being played, dis they all have to look so ORDINARY? Seriously, the bass player reminded me of Rory from the last series of Doctor Who.
Pictured: Not Metal
Anyway, enough of my petty complaints. Let us move onto the headliners so I can get in some REAL complaints. Now, I've been into Sigh for years. Lots of years as it turns out. They were one of the first Black Metal bands I ever really got into. So when I found out they were payaing I was naturally quite enthused at the prospect of finally seeing them live. If I'd known then what I know now I would have hunted down and killed the sound guy before he had a chance to perpetrate his evil crimes.
Here's a quick tip to all you budding sound engineers out there: If someone on stage is playing an instrument you might want to make it so that the instrument can be HEARD.
Maybe it's just where I was standing, but the keyboards were barely audible at best. I think there may have been a backing tape for some elements, but that may have just been my imagination filling stuff in. And the saxaphone was silent the entire time. This was rather annoying as it's kind of hard to judge what the addition of a saxaphonist adds to the procedings actually adds when you can't hear the damn thing. Yes, she's very attractive and not very clothed (and thus marketable) but I can get ladies on the internet wearing far less should I feel the need. I'm here for the MUSIC. I will say that although I was initially a little suprised she took on a fair amount of the vocal duties she handled them very well. And when you think about it it does make sense to have two singers handling things. Some of their stuff does have a level of overlap no one person could reproduce live. Indeed, a lot of the later stuff is fairly complex musically as well, and would be hard to do live at the best of times. That half the elements couldn't be heard here did not help matters. However they did play quite a bit of old stuff as well, and that worked perhaps a little better.
It's frustrating that the sound was so crap as otherwise this could have been a really great gig. Still, they did seem to make the most of it, coming out for an encore in the form of Venoms Black Metal. And let's face it, you don't need great sound quality for that sort of thing.
Overall a fun little excursion, but sadly flawed by the lack of any decent sound mix.
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