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As we approached the venue in the early
hours of the evening quite a crowd had already gathered outside the venue,
so from the off things looked good for a night of European Power Metal.
The variations of tee-shirts adorned by the crowd hailed the growth of
Power Metal in this country as the likes of Pagans Mind, Sonata Arctica,
Nightwish, Powerquest, Helloween and the like were on display.
Leeds Rio’s isn’t the biggest of venues
but the intimate nature of the venue has made for some great shows and
tonight was no exception.
Opening up tonight were one of Norway’s
best kept secrets, Pagans Mind, a band who have an abundance of talent at
their disposal. Led by Nils K. Rue on vocals, Jorn Viggo Lofstad on
guitars, Ronny Tegner on keyboards, Steinar Krokmo on bass and finally
Stian Kristofferson on drums.
Their set opened up with ‘Space And Time’
and from the off the Norseman set out their stage of powerful and melodic
Power Metal as they lifted the small venue from its foundations.
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The set continued with the first of the
bands new material from their latest release ‘Gods Equation’ with ‘United
Alliance’, a song that the crowd were obviously familiar with as the
chants of "HEY! HEY! HEY!" went out around the venue. I thought the
songs sounded good on the CD but live they are just monstrously good with
Rue in fine voice and Lofstad easing out the riffs like he was part of the
guitar.
Lofstad again was just stunning as the
set continued with the Bowie song ‘Hallo Spaceboy’, another favourite of
mine from the new album which saw the might of Krokmo and Kristofferson
powering through. This song went down an absolute storm with the
crowd.
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Next up was the heaviest track of 'Gods
Equation' the thumping 'Atomic Firelight' with a huge keyboard solo by
Tegner that really lifted the track to new heights. Then it was to
the back catalogue for the classic ‘Through Orisis Eyes’ as Lofstad and
Krokmo got this one off to a great start, with again Rue raising the crowd
into a chorus if "HEY! HEY! HEY!" once more.
The all too short set was rounded off
with another slice of Norse magic with ‘Alien Kamikaze’, a thumping and
truly bombastic end to a set that in my opinion should have been longer,
but this aside the Norsemen came pillaged with one hell of a show.
Now to Finns Sonata Arctica, who are one
of those bands that I’ve never heard anything by but judging by the
anticipation in the crowds eyes around me I was going to be swept away by
what was to come, and to be honest I was.
As the band walked on stage the venue
erupted and as Tony Kato and the rest of the band went into the opener ‘In
Black And White’, it was clear this band has something rather special.
Their mix of Heavy Prog Metal and more Melodic styles really went well
together and as the set continued with ‘Paid In Full’ and Kingdom Of The
Heart’, the band were definitely growing on me. By the time
‘Replica’ came about I was truly hooked on the band as guitar wiz Elias
“E.Vil” Viljanen was just mesmerizing.
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The set was as
much a "best of" set as you could get as they continued their domination
of tonight’s crowd with obvious favourites like ‘Shamandalie’, ‘Black
Sheep’ and the sublime ‘Wolf And Raven’, before rounding of the main
portion of the set with another slice of pure class with ‘Full Moon’.
The band left the stage to rapturous
applause and cheers of more and it wasn’t long before frontman Kato
returned as joined the crowd in a rendition of the National Anthem before
assigning varying parts of the crowd drum parts as the intro into a unique
version of the Queen classic 'We Will Rock You'.
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The rest of the band soon joined Kato on
stage for a encore which included such faves as ‘It Won't Fade’ and the
excellent ‘Don’t Say A Word’. This rounded off a great set from a
band who I had heard nothing of but very soon I will be purchasing as much
of their material as I can, so next time I will be one of the many singing
along to every word like the vast majority of tonight’s enthusiastic
crowd. |
