Artist: Sonata Arctica & Pagans Mind

Venue: Rios, Leeds  

Date: 22 April 2008  

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.

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.

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.

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'.

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.

 

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