Live review: Equilibrium, Lord of the Lost and Nailed To Obscurity at Dynamo, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, February 13th, 2020

On Thursday evening February the 13th three bands performed at the Mainstage of the venue of Dynamo in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Something that all three bands have in common is that they come from Germany. On a musical level these three bands are very different though and due to that this evening is very varied. Headliner Equilibrium brings epic folk metal, special guest Lord of the Lost plays metal which is in a more industrial/gothic direction, in which they also vary very much, but I’ll get back to that later, and support Nailed To Obscurity delivers melodic death metal.

Fifteen minutes after the venue’s doors opened it’s up to Nailed To Obscurity to kick off this evening. Unfortunately the sound quality during this show isn’t that good, something that especially becomes clear during the first few songs. Carsten Schorn’s bass and Jann Hillrichs’ drums are very loud in the mix which, especially during these first songs, is at the expense of Raimund Ennenga’s vocals and the, as becomes clear later on in the show, very atmospheric sounding guitars of Jan-Ole Lamberti and Volker Dieken. However, despite the drums being way too loud in the mix, those drums are the most interesting part of what Nailed To Obscurity is showing on stage. Jann Hillrichs drums in a very tight way and shows many different interesting things by drumming in quite a jazzy way by constantly adding new things in his drum pattern. The highlight when speaking about this, which by the way also is the highlight of this show in my opinion, is the heavily pounding song iNnerMe. After iNnerMe Nailed To Obscurity played a few more songs to end up instrumentally with guitarists Jan-Ole Lamberti and Volker Dieken mostly being in the spotlight. When speaking about the lights during this show, nothing less than only compliments, it was very fitting.

As soon as the second band of tonight, Lord of the Lost, enters the stage it becomes very clear that there are quite a lot of people in the audience that are very enthusiastic about this band. During their intro it can be heard that Niklas Kahl’s drums, just as those of his colleague from Nailed To Obscurity, are also quite loud. However, in contrast with Nailed To Obscurity’s show, it soon becomes clear that during this show the ratio between those drums and the rest of the band in the mix is fine. Lord of the Lost clearly thought about all aspects of their show. It shows that they really thought about their music, of course, but also about the, again, perfectly fitting lightshow, frontman Chris Harms’ luminous guitar, their stage outfits, make-up and even dances, by guitarist π and bass player Class Grenayde during the happy sounding La Bomba. A few of these things give this show a somewhat catchy vibe, something that musically also comes from the more melodic parts in Lord of the Lost’s music. That’s not all though, they put a lot of variation on a musical level in their show. These more melodic parts are regularly interchanged with more pounding moments. The selection of the songs on tonight’s setlist also add to that variation: some catchy songs, such as single Loreley and Die Tomorrow, some pounders, such as Full Metal Whore and Ruins, but they also played the more epic sounding Fists Up in the Air and the aforementioned happy sounding La Bomba. Despite the fact that he is standing more at the back of the stage, Gared Dirge also stood out during this show. He not only played the keys, but also the guitar as well as some percussion, with the latter one perfectly played together with drummer Niklas Kahl. At some moments he even played the keys and percussion during the same song in a well-executed way. This band delivers a very impressive show, that’s something that’s very clear and due to that I am not surprised that they are supporting a big name like Iron Maiden, as frontman Chris Harms proudly mentioned. However, to see them as Iron Maiden’s support you have to go to Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria or Italy, since this isn’t the case for Iron Maiden’s show in The Netherlands.

That very nice show was followed by another very nice show, from headliner Equilibrium. Unfortunately their guitarist Dom R. Crey wasn’t on stage with the rest of Equilibrium, because he needed to go to the hospital with severe pneumonia a few days earlier. Equilibrium played a few songs as a quartet, but for the main part of the show there’s a second guitarist, next to René Berthiaume: π Stoffers from Lord of the Lost, Volker Dieken and Jan-Ole Lamberti from Nailed To Obscurity as well as Equilibrium’s sound engineer Heiko Domeier are each playing the guitar for a few songs. That’s something that testifies of their fast learning capabilities of those specific guitar-parts and the very close bond during this tour. During the beginning of Equilibrium’s show the mix is somewhat shrill, but fortunately this soon became better. With their inciting, folky metal, including quite a lot of heavily pounding moments, Equilibrium created a very nice party along with the audience. There is a lot of beer flowing, heads are going up and down heavily, people are regularly jumping around and there is an almost constantly, pretty big mosh- or circle-pit as well as a wall of death. This was a very powerful, energetic, nice party!

It was a very nice evening for sure. Unfortunately, Nailed To Obscurity’s show was a bit disappointing, especially due to the sound, but Lord of the Lost’s and Equilibrium’s shows were perfect!

Equilibrium Official Website
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Lord of the Lost Official Website
Lord of the Lost Facebook
Lord of the Lost Instagram
Lord of the Lost Twitter
Nailed To Obscurity Official Website
Nailed To Obscurity Facebook
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Nailed To Obscurity Twitter