Fields of the Nephilim – Shepherds Bush Empire, London – 5th December 2014

Tonight’s show was the first of two to celebrate the band’s 30th anniversary.  Time certainly flies as when I thought about it I realised the first time I saw Fields of the Nephilim was 26 years ago.

The first act tonight was Dolomite minor, a Southampton based band.  I say band but duo is more accurate as there are only two of them, one on drums, and the other playing guitar and singing.
Right from the start the guitarist was using a lot of distortion and this worked very well. For a two piece band they make a lot of noise, and their rock songs were very good.  A lot of the songs had quite long instrumental passages included, but these were so well done it never felt out of place. The last song of the set was particularly enjoyable – it had a fairly slow pace with a doom feel to it, and the guitar tone definitely brought Black Sabbath to mind.  Definitely a band that is worth seeing – I’m glad I got down to the gig early to check them out.

Dolomite minor setlist:

Girl of gold
Aztec
When I’m dead
Watch yourself
Let me go

Next up was Finnish band HIM.  Judging by the screams and cheers as they came on stage, they had quite a few fans in the crowd. Ass the set went in it was clear it wasn’t just the screaming teenage girls who were fans – the band definitely went down well with a good portion of the crowd.
For me the highlight of the set was a superb cover of the Chris Isaacs song, “Wicked game”, although the whole set was very good  The band are a good choice to support a Fields of the Nephilim – both are rock (although HIM describe themselves as “love metal”) and have a strong fan base, and both are very melodic and use fairly deep vocals.    They definitely did a good job warming the crowd up for Fields of the Nephilim.

HIM setlist:

The sacrament
Wings of a butterfly
Right here in my arms
Kiss of dawn
Buried alive by love
Wicked game
Gone with the sin
Soul on fire
Poison girl
The funeral of hearts
Razor blade kiss
When love and death embrace

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Finally it was time for the main act – Fields of the Nephilim.  I’ve seen the band a number of times over the last 26 years, and have never been disappointed by them, and tonight was to prove no exception.  The band have an extremely devoted group of fans that they’ve built up over the last thirty years, and as a result the audience covered a wide age range from young teenagers to older fans, some of whom have probably been listening to the band from the early days.

During the set the security team found out what Nephilim fans like to do – never mind sitting on someone else’s shoulders, at Nephilim gigs you normally get some fans standing on their friends shoulders, and it only takes a couple of songs before the first fan does this and totally ignores security requests to get down, so it’s not long before there are four or five fans standing on people’s shoulders as they dance.

It’s a great set for this the first of two thirtieth anniversary shows – I suspect the second show will have a different setlist which is what they did with the Ceremonies shows a few years ago.  There are plenty of classic songs to keep the fans happy including  “Dawnrazor”, “Preacher man”, “Moonchild”, and also a couple of songs getting their first airing tonight – “E/P” and “Prophecy”.  It’s a superb gig – the band are spot on musically and really do keep the audience extremely happy.  The set closer, “Last exit for the lost” is a favourite of mine, and was a great way to end the set. Inevitably the fans demanded more, and after quite a long wait, the band obliged, coming back out to perform “Psychonaut”.  With many bands they’re barely off stage before they come back out to do the encore – almost as if they’re worried fans won’t wait for one, but with the Nephilim you certainly get the feeling that if the crowd didn’t make enough noise then they wouldn’t get an encore.

Fields of the Nephilim setlist:

Intro (The harmonica man)
Ends invade
Preacher man
Love under will
For her light
At the gates of silent memory
Zoon (Wakeworld)
Dawnrazor
E/P
Prophecy
Moonchild
Last exit for the lost
Encore:
Psychonaut

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