The Sonata Arctica concert last night at Harpo’s was nothing less than fantastically fabulous.
Silence was the first or second metal albums I ever bought, so having it signed is fairly significant.
Like the Opeth and Porcupine Tree concerts before, seeing the band live and meeting them afterwards is such a surreal and exciting experience. The Sonata guys were particularly friendly, too, especially Tony, who was kind enough to take three pictures with me on my camera phone after the two attempts didn’t turn out right. (The second picture was too dark, and Tony exclaimed as much. “That’s too dark, man! Let’s get somewhere where there’s more light…” I wasn’t going to argue.)
While Sonata Arctica show was killer, the range from when we arrived at doors-open at 6 PM to about 9 was mostly filler: Local bands playing weak black metal, cheap power metal, and an enthusiast but lacking gothic-styled doom metal band (best part of the gothic band’s act: a telephone they rigged up as a mic to get that low-quality vocal sound on-stage).
But when Sonata came on stage, the previous three hours of slogging through growling, howling might-be/would-be/never-be’s were completely forgotten. Here’s the set list, in the order as best as I can remember:
- Misplaced
- Blinded No More
- FullMoon
- Picturing The Past
- Kingdom For A Heart
- Victoria’s Secret [with a strange Reggae-style ending]
- Last Drop Falls
- My Land
- Broken
- 8th Commandment
- Tallulah
- Black Sheep [end of original show]
- [encore begins] Medley: San Sebastian, The Power of One, Destruction Preventer, Weballergy, Revontulet, et al [about six or seven minutes of different stuff — very cool]
- Don’t Say A Word
- The Cage
Not counting the ones included in the medley, that amounts up to three songs from Reckoning Night, the most recent album, five from Ecliptica, the first album, three from Winterheart’s Guild, and four from Silence, which is a pretty nice chronological spread. The big surprise was having the majority of the tunes coming from Ecliptica and not Reckoning Night. Still, since Ecliptica is probably the group’s best album — and oldest — it was a treat to hear that they hadn’t relaxed on cranking out the rockin’ originals.
For me, hearing Victoria’s Secret, My Land, and Don’t Say A Word live were the big stand-outs; if I could have requested a song that didn’t make an appearance, Wolf & Raven would have been chosen in a heartbeat. There were several cries from the audience in the show for White Pearl, Black Oceans…; obviously, hearing that opus would’ve been incredible, but it just didn’t make the cut for the night’s set. Maybe next year!
Other highlights from the show: Tony getting the audience to sing before beginning the encore (“We’re going to play a couple more songs, but first, you’re going to have to do something for us!”); this short, gorilla-ish guy shuffling around, tossing plastic cups and trash into the air and his frequent unsuccessful attempts to get a mosh pit going during the crap local bands; real moshing spinning about ten feet away with Sonata’s gig; and having the opportunity to shake the hand of every member of the band.
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