Well with the spring weather at its usual British best (Snow Forecast for Weekend), we decided to take a trip down south again to see one of, if not the biggest Symphonic Metal bands to come out of the US in recent years, the mighty Kamelot. 

This is my first visit to the Islington Carling Academy and with it having a club night on afterwards, it meant an early start to tonight’s proceedings and an even earlier train down to the big smoke, so after a quick wash and brush up it was down to Islington.

The doors opened a little after ten past six so this didn’t bode well for the first two bands on tonight’s bill.  Sure enough the first band Spanish Goth Rockers Forever Slave’s set had been cut down to only four songs, but what I witnessed from these four songs was that the band have a lot of potential, especially vocalist Lady Angellyca, who along with guitarists Servalath and Oswalth, set out their stall for all Gothic Rockers to follow, with tracks like 'Say Goodbye' and 'Gothic Girls' cementing the bands sound, although my pick of the four songs on display tonight would have to be 'Gasoline'.  With only four songs allowed it was clear the band seemed rushed on stage and weren’t as relaxed as they might have been, but they still gave it their all, so good on them.  I would have liked to have heard more and who knows, maybe in the not too distant future we might get to see the visit these shores once more. 

Now keeping with the European theme for support Greek Power Metallers Firewind were up next, and believe me what a welcome these guys got!  I swear nearly 80% of the crowd knew all about this quintet.

Opening up proceedings with ‘Into The Fire’ it was plain to see that Gus G and the rest of the band had come to rock ... and rock they did!

Carrying on with ‘Head Up High’ the crowd were definitely into this band as frontman Apollo Papothamsio whipped the crowd into a virtual frenzy of fists and metal horns. The band also seemed to be time restricted as they did away with the usual crowd banter and whipped into the excellent ‘I Am The Anger’ before Mark Cross on drums showed off a new toy, light up drum sticks as he hammered into the intro of 'The Silent Code’.  A real meaty chunk of Melodic Metal that went down a storm again.

Cross kept the party going as he produced an air horn and the band carried on their metal rampage with the highlight of the set for me the superb ‘Warrior’, as the guitars of Gus G just filled the venue with his towering riffs.

By this time most of the bands fans were to take away and when the band broke into ‘Falling to Pieces’ I thought the roof was gonna come off.  They rounded off the set with ‘Mercenary Man’ and again this was another highlight and one that finished off a quite excellent set.  I’m sure it won't be long before the band bring a headline tour to these shores because they certainly seem to have the fan base.

Now to on Kamelot.  What can I say about this band?  On album they are magnificent and live they are even better.  Anyone who caught them last year when they played the Astoria 2 knows what I’m on about, the band simply blew me away then and when they announced further dates to promote the 'Ghost Opera Revisited' release, come hell or high water, we were gonna be there.

With such a short time between shows the band could have easily replayed their set list from last time and many others, and I would have been totally happy with that, but the band had a few surprises up their sleeves for this set of shows.

As the lights went down the lowly figure of their backing singer stood centre stage blindfolded and playing the violin to the intro ‘Solitaire’, before the rest of the band Thomas Youngblood, Oliver Palotai, Sean Tibbetts and Casey Grillo hit the stage and went into ‘Rule The World’.  Then frontman Khan made his entrance in a full length buckled down coat and set about putting on a charismatic show as only he can.

Khan stood aloft the crowd centre stage as Youngblood and Tibbetts powered into the opening few chords of one of my favourite tracks ‘When The Lights Are Down’, the crowd were in their element as Khan put 110% of his emotions into every note.

The set continued with ‘Soul Society’ before the first of the surprises of the set the first ever live performance of ‘The Pendulous Fall’.  This towering anthem was just excellent and really ignited the already frenzied crown into a hail of fists and chants of approval from the capacity crowd.

The monstrous set continued with 'Decent of the Archangel' then it was time for the more mellow tones of ‘Abandoned’, as Khan and his backing vocalist duet to this haunting dark melody.

The tempo is soon back to full throttle as Youngblood and Tibbett get ‘The Human Stain’ underway in their own dynamic style, with Tibbett thrashing about on stage thankfully showing no lasting effects of last years fall on stage affecting him what so ever.

Khan left the stage as it was time for the band to show off their individual skills with an instrumental, when all but Oliver Palotai gets a solo spot, but fear not his time was yet to come!

It was back to the infamous 'Black Halo' album for the excellent ‘Serenade’ before one of the bands finest ever tracks ‘Elizabeth’.  This is what I like to call "Film Score Metal" as it has an air about it, a haunting yet mystical feel and will always be one of my favourites from the band whether live or on album.

Next Palotai got his chance to shine with his own solo before the magnificent ‘Forever’, which gave the crowd a chance to sing-a-long with Khan as they all chant ... Whoooo Whooooo Whooooo Whooooo Ahooooo Whoooo Whooo Whoooo Whoooo Whooooo.

It was time again for another first as the band gave us ‘Edenecho’ the final track from the fabulous 'Ghost Opera' album.  To hear it live was just magical and Khan showed a full range of emotions on this one.  As the band left the stage I for one was totally spent but there was more to come.  As the chants for more echoed around the venue it wasn’t long before the band returned for the encore of ‘Ghost Opera' and ‘Karma’, both blistering classics.  The band left the stage once more before returning again to put that final icing on the cake with what else but 'March Of Mephisto', which rounded off another great show from the kings of Symphonic Metal Kamelot, long may they reign.