On the third leg of their Ghost Opera tour the might of Florida Kamelot have finally returned to these shores even, though it is only one show in the capital and with this news it was straight onto the various web sites for hotels and trains.  Come hell or high water I was getting down to see these titans of the Symphonic Metal genre and with Threshold being announced as the support, this was even more of an incentive to travel to the big smoke to see these two giants on one stage in one night.

Since the announcement of the show many things have happened in the Threshold camp mainly the sudden departure of Andrew ‘Mac’ McDermott from the band and the return of Damian Wilson, the bands singer before Mac, to take up the vocals on what has been described as a temporary basis.

The departure of Mac had left the prospect of the show somewhat tainted, as I like many others thought he brought something special to the band and left Damian the jobs of filling mighty large shoes.

Because of the somewhat unreliability of the London Underground system we arrived at the venue just as the first band Serenity were leaving the stage.  With barely time to get a few beers, Threshold were soon taking to the stage.

The band opened up with ‘Slipstream’ taken from the bands latest album ‘Dead Reckoning’ and instantly to me and many others the band didn’t seem the same without Mac at the helm.  I’m not saying Wilson is a bad vocalist, it's just not the same.  Yes he is a fine frontman and can whip up a crowd in a frenzy with his enthusiasm, but the songs lacked the emotion that Mac’s vocals seemed to bring to the Threshold sound.

But I was willing to give the guy a chance to redeem himself as the set continued with ‘Pressure’ from the bands 'Subsurface' opus.  On this one Damian got a little nearer to the sound I was used to from the bands frontman, although it still wasn't quite there yet.

The band continued with the 'Subsurface' album with ‘Mission Profile’, a track that brought a rye smile to my face as the backing vocals being used were still Mac’s, before returning to the new album for ‘Hollow’, which again sounded (pardon the pun) hollow, but the solo of 'One Degree Down' at the end made it all worth while, and as Damian stage dived into the delighted crowd, things looked like they were picking up.

Damian open up one of the best Threshold songs to date ‘Pilot In The Sky’ with another stage dive.  Again the song lacked the emotion and range of McDermott, which although this spoiled the song for me, the crowd down the front were lapping up Damian’s stage antics, and he in turn was lapping up their appreciation, so it can't have been all that bad.

The band turned back the clock even further with ‘Light And Space’ from their 'Hypothetical' album before finishing off with ‘This Is Your Life’ which is again taken from the new album.  Damian finished the set off with another stage dive much to the delight of those down the front.

I personally would have preferred to have heard another couple of songs from the band when Wilson was originally the singer, however with a new album to promote and time restrictions I can fully understand their reasons for choosing the set they did.

Now on to the main event and the one that I had been really looking forward to ever since I heard the band's 'Black Halo' release.  Since then I have become a big fan and always thought to catch them live would truly be the icing on the cake.

A lone female violinist stood stage front as the set goes underway with ‘Solitaire’, then making way for Thomas Youngblood, Khan and Oliver Palotai, Casey Grillo and touring bassist Sean Tibbetts, who returns to the band and whose presence was sadly short lived, but more on that later.

The band kept on going one man down as the set continued with ‘Soul Society’ and the superb ‘Mourning Star’, then from the wings we saw the return of Tibbett's who took up his place on stage, though seated he still pounded out the bass thru the pain barrier as the band went into ‘Descent Of The Archangel’.

The pace was slowed down a little at this point with the haunting ballad ‘Abandoned’, which almost all the Kamelot fans knew word for word, as the crowd sang along with Khan on this one.  The slower material continued with the excellent ‘The Human Stain’, another great track from the 'Ghost Opera' album.

As Khan took a short rest bite the rest of the band showed their musical prowess with a short instrumental before Khan returned for one of the highlights of the night the mighty ‘Centre Of The Universe’, which saw the crowd unite as one unit in approval of this great track.

Khan was joined by backing singer Katherine for ‘The Haunting (Somewhere In Time)’ which sounded just great, then it was on to another of highlight of the set, for me at least, the quite magnificent ‘Forever’, which Youngblood got underway.  Right from those first few notes everyone knew what was to come.  This thumping slice of Symphonic Metal is just superb on album, but live it simply blows you away and even the crowd sang along at the end, it was just magnificent.

The band left the stage for only a few moments before they returned to put the icing on the cake with their grand finale, ‘March of Mephisto’, which rounded off a great set.  The only qualm I have is the size of the venue.  I would have loved to have seen them in a main hall and with a much bigger PA so the real magnificence that was apparent on their 'One Cold Winters Night' DVD could be fully experienced.  I'm sure this band could easily fill a larger arena and give us Brits a show to top all shows.  There's talk of the band returning to these shores again before too long and I for one will be eagerly watching for those dates to appear.