To be
fair, the only reason I went to Manchester Academy was to see Turisas,
for their third autumn show in Manchester in as many years. So when I
arrived to see a half mile queue down Oxford Road, I was quite pleased
to be on the guest list, as there is no way I’d have seen the battle
metallers otherwise.
Amazingly enough the chanting of
“Tur-i-sas, Tur-i-sas” began about fifteen minutes before the band were
due onstage and thus, when they bounded on at eight o’clock, they took
no prisoners tearing straight into the song that defined the genre,
“Battle Metal” itself. But that was only the beginning of the onslaught
as the metal warriors followed up with both “A Portage To The Unknown”
and “One More” before the interesting addition of violin solo, at a
metal show but somehow showcasing different types of metal on a violin
turned out to be rather impressive. With the addition of some Eastern
European sounds to the mix courtesy of “In The Court Of Jarislef” , with
Mary Hopkin’s classic “Those Were The Days” tacked onto the end the band
morphed the tune into the Boney M standard “Rasputin”, , a song which
Turisas have truly made their own on the live circuit before rounding
off a triumphant set with “To Holmgard And Beyond”. One thing was
certain, after such a set Turisas’ were going to be a hard act to
follow. From the ecstatic crowd reaction to the perfect sound and in
your face performance, Dragonforce were going to have their work cut
out!
Initially all seemed well as
Dragonforce strolled on stage to a heroes welcome, as if they were long
lost sons of metal who hadn’t been home for the longest time. However
having seen the sextet on last year’s Black Crusade tour I really didn’t
expect much better from them, and of course there is the fact that they
"apparently" regularly have “bad” days. Well if that is the case this
was to be one of them.
Opening with “Heroes Of Our Time”,
their new single, the band incredibly suffered from a poor mix, no
bass or keyboards, all that could be heard were the high pitched
vocals of ZP Theart along with occasional drums and the ridiculously
twiddly guitar parts courtesy of Herman Li and Sam Totman. Things were
slightly rectified come “Operation Ground And Pound” in that you the
keyboards actually made an appearance, well the keyboard player ran
around onstage with his Keytar anyhow however come the third song, the
mix was still appalling meaning that it was pretty difficult to tell
when one song finished and the next one started. Perhaps it got better,
maybe it stayed the same but after three songs it was almost impossible
to actually put up with the truly dismal noise generated inside the
Academy. You have to feel sorry for those who’d paid £14 for the
gig. In the current economic climate, well in any economic climate, it's
just shockingly awful! How the sound can differ so much from one band to
the next, and the support band actually have better sound than the
headline act just beggars belief. Still Turisas more than made up for
Dragonforce’s faults!
John Consterdine
