The concert was recorded at the Masters of Rock festival in the Czech Republic, as part of the supporting tour of Eluveitie’s current album, Ategnatos. It is not surprising then that many songs are taken out of this album: Ategnatos, Deathwalker, Worship, Ambiramus, Breathe and Rebirth. It is amazing to hear how all these songs work out very well live: it’s a very bombastic, at times even almost overwhelming listening experience. By the sound of it, these songs also worked really well for the audience – almost as well as the classics we all came to know and love, namely King, The Call Of The Mountains, Thousandfold and Inis Mona. The whole package is rounded off by songs taken from the Helvetios and Evocation II albums.

My biggest fear was that the sound would be an issue, as so often is the case with live performances. However, the producers did an excellent job here as well – all instruments, even those with a general weaker sound such as the flute, are crystal clear. Still, this album doesn’t feel over-produced, but rather maintains the charme that comes with a live performance. You can just grasp the energy and joy the musicians bring to the stage… and those will stay with you long after the last note of Inis Mona is played. Thus, this album comes highly recommended – 10/10.

Here you can read our live review of Dynamo Metalfest 2019’s first day, where Eluveitie also performed. Here you can read our other live review of Eluveitie, when they performed at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht together with Lacuna Coil and Infected Rain.

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The post Review: Eluveitie – Live at Masters of Rock appeared first on DutchMetalManiac.

It’s up to Infected Rain to kick off this evening. That’s something they do in a very powerful way. The basics of Infected Rain’s music, Eugene’s pounding drums in collaboration with Vladimir’s bass, combined with Sergey’s, who’s back after having to skip some of Infected Rain’s earlier shows, and Vidick’s tight riffs are taking care for a neckbreaking, very grooving vibe with a lot of energy coming off of it. On top of that frontwoman Lena adds very powerful screams which she interchanges with her beautiful, very authentic, clean vocals, including a nice, a bit echoing effect. The only thing that’s a bit less well about this is that those clean vocals drown a bit in the mix at some moments, especially during the song Infected Rain starts with, Mold. On stage the energy that comes off of Infected Rain’s music can especially be seen when looking at Lena and Vidick. Unfortunately it can be much less seen within the audience. Some people in the audience are banging their heads, but most of the people are just calmly looking at the stage. During Infected Rain’s last song, Sweet, Sweet Lies, there is a circle pit going on, but that happens because Lena asks for it. During this last song she gives everything she has for the last time tonight while she hangs over the audience in the first row. Maybe the audience reacting not very energetic also has something to do with the quite pounding aspect of Infected Rain and the fact that this is the first show of the evening, because the enthusiasm seems to grow during the show and the applause at the end of their set is quite enthusiastic.

That enthusiasm grows even more during the next two shows, with Lacuna Coil entering the stage first. I am going to be honest, Lacuna Coil really isn’t a band I like and after I saw them live last year as support of Epica at 013 in Tilburg, that certainly didn’t get better. In my opinion I wouldn’t be disappointed when the special guest Lacuna Coil was skipped. However, they are on stage at this moment and many people in the audience clearly are very happy with that, something that I also noticed during that earlier show at 013. I am present here to write a live review of this evening and that’s why I am also going to watch Lacuna Coil’s show, despite my negative view on this band and maybe to be in for a surprise. I have to say that my negative view became a bit less negative after this show, Lacuna Coil never will be my favorite band, but this show was much stronger than I expected. Personally  the musically deeper songs Layers of Time, the first song in which Andrea Ferro also brings some more vocals, The House of Shame, Sword of Anger and Veneficium, in which Cristina Scabbia delivers very high vocals, really surprised me. The depth of the songs also is why Lacuna Coil’s music isn’t really to my liking. In my opinion the other songs they played tonight lack that depth the above-mentioned songs have. Rhythm-section Richard Meiz (drums) and Marco Coti Zelati (bass) are grooving heavily, but in terms of rhythm-changes they do so in a bit boring way. Guitarist Diego “Didi” Cavalotti shows some nice solos, but the rest of what he’s doing on guitar isn’t that special. Vocalist Cristina Scabbia is best in shape tonight, with her a bit emotionless vocals during Heaven’s a Lie as exception to that. During this song there also seems to be some problems with the mix, because the bass suddenly is very loud. Vocalist Andrea Ferro is also quite in shape with his vocals, while these aren’t that well audible all the time, because he holds his microphone quite far from his mouth. The atmosphere during this show is very nice and Cristina as well as Andrea are encouraging this even more.

That nice atmosphere will stay that way for some time tonight, because Eluveitie also unleashes this within the audience. They perfectly start their show very strong so that this show can’t go wrong anymore. They do so with Ategnatos, of which the ritualistic-sounding intro gets a very nice execution with two drums being played behind a white curtain with lights behind them, resulting in big shadows on the curtain to lead up to going completely crazy with the rest of this song. There immediately is a lot of energy to be found on the, due to Eluveitie’s nine band members, busy stage, just as within the audience. Matteo Sisti’s whistles, and at some moments bagpipes, Nicole Anspenger’s fiddle, Fabienne Erni’s harp, Michaline Malisz’ hurdygurdy and at some moments Chrigel Glanzmann’s mandolin add a very nice folky vibe to Eluveitie’s music just as quite a lot of depth and variation. That’s something drummer Alain Ackermann, bass player Kay Brem and guitarists Jonas Wolf and Rafael Salzmann also do in terms of their rhythm-changes. In addition to that they also regularly deliver very heavily pounding moments on which heads can be banged, such as in Worship, Kingdome Come Undone and Rebirth. Of course Eluveitie classics such as The Call of the Mountains, which tonight is performed in its Swiss version, De Ruef vo de Bärge, and Inis Mona, on which the audience can jump along for the last time because Eluveitie closes their set with this song tonight, aren’t missing on their setlist. Not only Eluveitie’s instrumentalists are very well in shape tonight, that also is the case with both vocalists, the already as instrumentalists mentioned Chrigel Glanzmann and Fabienne Erni. Chrigel also does a few songs alone vocal-wise, while Fabienne is completely alone on stage during Artio. In addition to her beautiful vocals Fabienne also shows a very intense scream at a few moments. Eluveitie plays a very strong show tonight and they definitely showed that they totally deserved to be tonight’s headliner.

This evening was a very nice evening, with Eluveitie’s show being the strongest with Infected Rain’s show soon following, while Lacuna Coil also surprised me a bit positively.

Here you can read the interview DutchMetalManiac’s Tim van Velthuysen had with Infected Rain’s Lena Scissorhands before this show. You can also read our 15th part of Promoting Bands, which includes Infected Rain, here. You can also read our live review of the first day of this year’s Dynamo Metalfest, where Eluveitie played, here. Here you can read our review of Eluveitie’s live album Live at Masters of Rock. Here you can read our review of Lacuna Coil’s live album The 119 Show – Live In London, while you can read our review of their Delirium album here.

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Lacuna Coil Official Website
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Infected Rain Official Website
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The post Live review: Eluveitie, Lacuna Coil and Infected Rain at TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, The Netherlands, November 17th, 2019 appeared first on DutchMetalManiac.

On Saturday there will be nine bands performing, on Friday there will be six bands with the first band beginning at four o’clock. One hour earlier the festival area would be opened, but that got a bit delayed. Around 25 minutes later than planned it opened. Once inside the festival area turned out to be set-up in a very spacious and clear way. In case you didn’t see the festival map a few things might call for a bit of searching, such as the place of the signing sessions, but the most important things, the stage, the token booths, the bars, the food stands and the toilets are easy to find and easily reachable. The weather forecast for this Friday predicted that it would be dry and hot, something that indeed became true. Whether that’s the same for Saturday…

Around four o’clock the first band enters the stage. It is up to Baest to kick off Dynamo Metalfest 2019. During the opening show it soon became clear that the bass-sound is way too loud. The other sounds are audible but the balance in the mix is a bit disturbed. Unfortunately this stays this way during this entire show and for the main part of this day. However, Baest delivers a pounding start of the festival. Due to this way too loud bass, but also in a more positive way, especially due to the nice buzz saw guitars of Svend Karlsson and Lass Revsbech. Both guitarists also show to be able to deliver some nice solo’s, such as in As Above So Below and closing track Crosswhore. Baest also shows a lot of enthusiasm on stage, something that’s cool to see. Frontman Simon Olsen shows to be quite energetic and the band has a lot of contact with the audience. The audience itself is also already quite enthusiastic as can be seen at, for example, the amount of fists up in the air during As Above So Below.

The second band of this Friday also is a death metal band: Jungle Rot. During this show the bass-problem is a bit less obvious, resulting in a better balanced mix. This makes that Jungle Rot sounds very powerful. That power clearly also passes onto the audience. A lot of people are banging their heads and there also is a moshpit going on, turning the dry grass into a cloud of dust. There aren’t many people crowdsurfing though. At least not until frontman Dave Matrise encourages this before starting Paralyzed Prey. Now, the first person is already crowdsurfing, even before the band started Paralyzed Prey, and soon many followed. During this show the nice atmosphere of a festival is getting better and better. James Genenz delivers a nice humming sound out from his bass guitar and Geoff Bub delivers a few very nice guitarsolo’s in a show that is very tight and well executed, including quite some tempo changes without losing brutality.

Then it’s time for a show where people can get a bit more rest compared to the two preceding pounding shows, it’s Grand Magus’ turn now. This show’s tempo is quite a bit lower. However this says nothing about the quality of this show, because Grand Magus delivers a very nice show. What is especially standing out is the drumming style of Ludwig Witt, which is quite heavy for this show’s tempo, but it fits very well. Besides that bass player Fox Skinner delivers, just as his colleague in Jungle Rot, a nicely humming bass sound. JB Christoffersson performs, besides his vocals, a few very nicely roaring guitarsolo’s. The audience seems to be a bit less enthusiastic than before, but that could also be the case because of the contrast between this show and two preceding shows.

After this show it gets busy on the stage, nine musicians are entering the stage, a few of them also playing some rarer instruments like the hurdygurdy, harp, fiddle and whistles. You probably already guessed it, Eluveitie is on stage. Soundwise, unfortunately the bass-problem is back, resulting in most of these rarer instruments being barely audible. The only instrument out of these rarer instruments that is audible quite clearly are the whistles. However, this doesn’t decrease the audience’s enthusiasm and energy during this show, as can be seen by the moshpit and the many crowdsurfers during Call of the Mountains. Unfortunately Fabienne Erni’s vocals seem to be a bit emotionless during this song. However, later on in the show it appears to not always be this way, especially not when she’s singing Artio. The other vocals, those of Chrigel Glanzmann, are also very well done. Besides that it also is nice to see that the band has a lot of fun during this show.

The next band that enters the stage is the first band that also brings a bit more show-aspects to the stage. Everybody that have seen Avatar, the band I am talking about now, perform live before knows what I mean. The band members are entering the stage with nice make-up and in very cool, characteristic outfits. It also is very clear who’s standing out the most, that’s frontman Johannes Michael Gustaf Eckerström. He is a true showman and really knows how to lead this show in a phenomenal way. He does so in different ways, by his eccentric way of talking in between songs, his movements as well as through his strong vocals. He and Avatar’s other members are getting the audience very enthusiastic and a lot of people are singing along with the lyrics. Avatar delivers a very strong show with quite a bit of variation included. This surely is one of today’s highlights.

After Avatar’s show there is one more band scheduled for today and that’s today’s headliner Airbourne. Airbourne probably brought their own sound guy, because the sound during this show is way better, a clear difference compared to the rest of the day. Airbourne doesn’t perform just a show, this clearly is a headliner-worthy show and the absolute highlight of the day. Airbourne executes their show in a very tight way and the audience is completely going crazy. A few highlights of this show being the toast to Lemmy and the moment that frontman Joel O’Keeffe is playing guitar while being walked around on someone’s neck through the audience to let a can of beer explode in the middle of this audience in a very intense way. Besides their show being very well done musically, the light show is also very nice and having some effect because of it getting darker.

Unfortunately the sound of this first day of Dynamo Metalfest 2019 wasn’t that great, something that hopefully is a bit better on the second day. Exceptions to this were Airbourne’s show with great sound and the show of Jungle Rot when it was a bit less obvious. Despite that this first day of Dynamo Metalfest 2019 was a nice day with nice shows with my personal highlight being Airbourne’s show, closely followed by those of Avatar and Jungle Rot.

Tomorrow we will post our live review of Dynamo Metalfest 2019’s second day!

Here you can read our live review of Dynamo Metalfest 2017. You can read our live review FortaRock 2018’s second day, when Avatar performed there, here, as well as our review of Avatar’s Feathers & Flesh here.

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Airbourne Official Website
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Avatar Official Website
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Eluveitie Official Website
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Grand Magus Official Website
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Jungle Rot Official Website
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Baest Official Website
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The post Live review: Dynamo Metalfest 2019 Day 1 at Kunstijsbaan, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, July 19th, 2019 appeared first on DutchMetalManiac.