Gig Review - Amon Amarth Backstage Live - San Antonio

Heavy metal concerts indoors is an experience every metal fan should experience once, I had seen/heard and experienced this in bits and pieces of up and coming bands. The Amon Amarth gig at Backstage Live on the 20th of January will be right up there.

San Antonio is a city which is not synonymous with Tejano Music ( the happy happy stuff which is associated with big hatted mexican people - sorry for being stereotypical here ) Metal or heck Rock music in this part of the woods is something which is unheard or rare - fans of this genre flock to Austin or Dallas to get their dose of live music ! The fact that Amon Amarth was coming to town was huge!

The gig featured three bands Skeletonwitch, Enslaved and Amon Amarth - all this in a venue which is in not the most safest part of the neighborhood of the town and to be honest I expected this venue to be an outdoors venue but the fact that this was an old warehouse for a cold storage converted to an Indoor Venue made it mode dark and come to think of it apt for a real underground feel.

The gig started off with the lesser known of the three - Skeletonwitch. This was my first dekko of them and they are an Interesting Mix of thrash metal with elements of black / melodic death thrown in. They got the 200 odd folks going bonkers. the local junta gathered here (which was mostly of a college - senior school crowd knew this band, and they were growling away with the lead singer) ... 

Setlist -

The Horrifying Force (The Desire to Kill) 
Serpents Unleashed 
I Am of Death (Hell Has Arrived) 
Burned from Bone 
Sacrifice for the Slaughtergod 
Beyond the Permafrost 
From a Cloudless Sky 
Crushed Beyond Dust 
Beneath Dead Leaves 
Within My Blood 


This was followed by the more Melodic - Enslaved who were a very different band from their predecessor. More Melodic and progressive. They Kicked off their gig with Death in the Eyes of Dawn followed by Ruun and their best Ethica Odini. Which was followed by RIITIIR,  Allfaðr Oðinn and Isa. 

Amon Amarth followed Enslaved  

They Kicked off their set with a Video Teaser of Father of the Wolf and he popular Deceiver of the Gods from their new album. This was succeeded by Death in Fire and Free Will Sacrifice from their older albums.

The rest of the setlist - 

As Loke Falls 
We Shall Destroy 
Runes to My Memory 
Varyags of Miklagaard 
The Last Stand of Frej 
Guardians of Asgaard 
Blood Eagle
Warriors of the North  — classic Amon Amarth from their latest album
Destroyer of the Universe 
Cry of the Black Birds 
War of the Gods 

Encore:
Twilight of the Thunder God 

The Pursuit of Vikings 

What made this set list different from the other two was that Johan Hegg (their lead singer) was interactive and was giving a preview of each song in his own style and chugging beers from an ivory horn ! 

He was also narrating the story (Thor/Odin/Valhalla logic) to all before each song.

The crowd was lapping it all up as we had moshpits became more intense. And some were high enough to go crowd surfing to the stage !  It was a memorable gig despite the bruised ribs/sore back which still hurts while I type this entry but this made re-ignite the liking for metal and live music - which each one of us need to support.

Edit - what was intriguing was the I had a cabbie drive me back who was referring San Antonio as the "Heavy Metal Capital of the World" in the 80's which I was really not sure of but did a bit of research and I am getting some pretty interesting reads ... http://2fast2die.com/2012/07/joe-anthony-the-spirit-of-san-antonio-radio/ 

Messi Mer Eyes-ed -- Argentina VS Venezuela

The entry title should read Messi and Kolkata vs Venezuela and Organizers. 

A Once in a lifetime chance beckoned for us few football fanatics who lap up every action be on ESPN or Ten Action ! It was therefore imminent that when the gods of this beautiful game came down on earth to India we had to line up braving all fronts to be blessed by them, this was only possible after I was egged on by my folks which made this possible.

Ticket bookings were all done before hand thanks to the good BookMyShow portal. The trouble started when the Home on Delivery option was delayed twice and finally we were told to collect the tickets at the Stadium before the match.



Anticipating a mad rush of crowds for the tickets, we reached the stadium on the matchday morning to collect, but chaos and mismanagement on the part of BookMyShow representatives at the stadium and the Organizers left half of the fans who were not from Kolkata confused for there were 3 counters for ticket collection but no one was giving the tickets and we were asked to go to one counter which was giving all the home-delivery tickets which were to be collected from the stadium. This number was much more and one counter was not doing justice to the angry bodies which were piling up, the representatives could have been more sensible here and placed two counters with a clear written sign boards for each which was missing!

Do you see the end of the line ?

The match was due to kickoff at 1900 and predicting a huge queue we reached the gates at 1600 only to find a humungous line on the road, which was piling up rapidly. Yes this 3 KM serpentine mammoth line was for the 1800 Rs ticket. The wait on the line took its toll on us without food/water (which were banned inside) and this was grossly unmanned/unmanaged which many tried to take advantage of. We could not sight a single person from the Organizing / Event Management staff who could keep a tab on the queue and it was left to the football loving people of Kolkata and the argumentative Bengalee ( a.k.a Gennarro Gattuso) in each one of us which kept the Messi's from sneaking in the lines. Hats off to Kolkata and its people for this, anywhere else this would have been a stampede and a major chaos which was imminent as the cops were non-challant and were busy attending to the VIPS/VVIPS and were chilling out at the gates whist crowds were piling up on the roads to the stadium.

The Car Says it all !! It was Blue and White all the way

Salt Lake Stadium with its new found Lights

Speaking of which this was my first visit to one of the Biggest Stadium's of the world yes and the cliche of an Electric atmosphere is definitely an understatement. One must see this colossus arena to believe and this when jam-packed like Friday night makes any contest an experience of a lifetime for anyone. Sadly the organizers here did not mention the type of seating whist booking online and many of us travelers felt cheated when we were welcomed by err... no seats but steps to squat / sit / squeeze  into. This one felt the Organizers should have mentioned or could have arranged for chairs so that people who did not want to squat would have gone for better seats. 


All the cribbing and whining of the people disapparated at the sight of the Argentine Team coming on to the pitch, for a warm up as they cheered loudly for the new hero of Kolkata Leo Messi, the Dadu's and Kaku's of Kolkata gave their expert pre-match analysis with expert opinions and predictions alongwith the galagaal given to those who were not sitting on their respective stair ;)

The match was a cagey affair with both the teams not going all out to get the ball probably to avoid injury and to conserve themselves from the energy sapping heat of Kolkata. Full reviews can be seen over the papers but for me the stars of the match were Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano from Argentina and the defensive pair of Oswaldo Vizcarrondo and Fernando Amorebieta who had an disinterested Higuain and a over-cautious Di Maria in their pockets which left Messi tad isolated. The skill of the man was on show as India got to see the flicks,chips,passes, deft touches, fakes from the Barca number 10 which was the "paisa vasool" factor. The goal was from an industrious corner scored by Ottamendi this showed the resolute brickwall of the Venezuelan defense and the over-cautious approach from the Argentine players.The advent of Kun Aguero on the 75th minute in place of  Higuain brought the crowd to raptures as the Citizen looked to showcase his skills and breathed much needed life into the game.


It finished 1-0 Argentina but it left a huge 60-40 score in me. Hope Indian football scene picks up and goes far! 

The Dark Tranquility Experience

Melodic Death Metal takes time to digest, that is a fact and one needs to have the ear for it and the patience to listen to this genre without being harshly opinionated on considering this as "Noise".
   
Dark Tranquility is considered one of the Pioneers of this act and it took more time to me than others to start liking this band. Whilst its similar compatriots "In Flames" were easier to start liking. The frontman Mikael Stanne loves to scream and he has a very distinct style of the death growl. "Wonders at your feet" is the first one which got stuck to my head.


News of the pioneers coming to India and that too Hyderabad BITS Campus of all places was like having an Oasis in a Desert, no offense to the growing underground scene at my hometown but metal as such is not a regular plate of annam-pappu-avakai combo which you get to listen when you switch on the local radio stations or browse though the various Planet-M or Sangeet Sagar outlets. The last time I was at a metal gig at Hyderabad was at BITS (Pilani) Hyderabad (more like State Bank of Patiala - Mumbai branch). The scene at that gig was mainly comprised of local bands who were battling it out at the college fest. Death Metal/Headbanging/Green Fuel dominated the 2010 Fest where a sparsely occupied college football ground was the host to 8-10 bands. Many a fresher stood amused at the gig, best part of it was that the gigs went on till wee hours of Morning.


The coming of such a huge International act to BITS for their college fest was a truly commendable achievement as it will generate a buzz among the local college kids who would surely wake up and take notice of the band and subsequently some would pick up a CD and be on his way to become a metal-head! Opeth at IIT Chennai, Porcupine Tree at IIT Mumbai are good examples of this.

Our journey to the far off BITS campus was quite a tiring one, the day train journey from Pune to Hyderabad which our Railways had chosen to change the "express" to passenger did not help matters at all, after a quick pit stop at Madguy's we made our way to the campus which was quite far from the twin city limits. This being a in-campus gig had a lot of no-no's so one had to behave ;) while being inside the campus. The gig organizers and SPOC's had confidently confirmed that all would start by 1830 and we would wind up by 2230 sharp. We reached at around 1830 and the सब कुछ चलता है attitude ensured that there were last minute arrangements for the main stage and the bands were yet to start sound-check, which took a lot of time to wind up.

The gig started off with the winners of the Battle of Bands concert of this year, a band from Chennai (my likening with forgetting names prohibits me from posting it). This was followed up with another Swedish Metalcore band who were good and got the crowd going. This was followed up by Kryptos who were really good despite having their regular lead guitarist not present. This really got the metal heads going and a mini-mosh pit kicked off much to the amusement of the local residents of BITS most of whom were caught unawares and bore the brunt of it.

The onset of the band was really good which reminded me of the Iron Maiden Somewhere back in Time tour (VDO to be tagged later). By the time the main act started the crowd had built up and we were ready to lap up the awesomeness. By the time the Fatalist started the moshpit grew bigger and a mini wall of death was also on show. What was really interesting to see is the humility of the band who really thanked the audience/India for calling them and reminded us that they really loved to come here which was quite startling considering that they are death metal!!

Tentative Setlist:

   1. At the Point of Ignition
   2. The Fatalist
   3. Damage Done
   4. Lost To Apathy
   5. Monochromatic Stains
   6. The Gallery
   7. The Wonders At Your Feet
   8. Iridium
   9. Shadow in Our Blood
  10. Focus Shift
  11. Icipher
  12. Dream Oblivion
  13. Misery's Crown
  14. Haven
  15. Punish My Heaven 
   

  Encore
  16. Final Resistance
  17. ThereIn
  18. Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive)

What was memorable from the gig was the presence of a Swedish Flag and the enthusiasm of the college folks who were really new to metal considering that this was a death metal concert. They lapped up whatever the artists had to offer wherein groups of girls were even seen headbanging when it was quite evident that they were new to it! 

The entire show went off well much to our surprise which we were sceptical that might be a dud considering that this was a Hyderabad college where it was being held. The dust finally settled down but the memories of DT will be with me for a long time.

P+iJ

K - why is the sun short brother  ... 
A - confused smiley ... 
K - Itna Sun-Nata Kyon Hai Bhai

Char-De me .. (4give)

better late than never

this blog is not a place where one will find ingenious posts nor will i decorate my posts with cantankerous words on whose reading folks may have to scurry for another tab for a dictionary to find ! 

this will be a medium wherein i will just play with what i like and vent all that which i want to and keep this updated with more posts from other blogs .. 

here is to the start of things to come ... quoting one of my favorite bands

Porcupine Tree - Start of Something Beautiful