PlanetMosh Keeping it Metal
Todays gig was slightly unusual for me. No it’s not the fact it was held in a small venue in Holland so required a long journey to get there – no, the strange part was the time. Instead of a 7pm start and late finish, this was billed as a “Heavy lazy sunday afternoon”, with the doors opening at 2pm and an early finish. I can’t remember going to any other gigs that are afternoons rather than evenings/nights, but with it being a Sunday it actually made a lot of sense as people could enjoy the show and not have to worry about a late night before work on Monday morning. It also allowed plenty of time so all three bands had a decent length set.
First up were Mental Circus, a young Belgian band. Although I’d picked up a copy of their album after Metal Female Voices Fest and thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, this was my first time seeing them live. Unfortunately things didn’t get off to a good start – after the intro they started into the first song but very quickly it became apparent that the guitar sound wasnt coming through, and they had to stop and get some quick repairs made to the guitar before they were able to resolve the problem and start again.
The band all look confident and perform well, with vocalist Sanne doing a great job as frontwoman, moving around and headbanging between vocal parts. The vocals are mainly the traditional rock/metal style with some male growls, but there are also a few more operatic style vocal parts too.
With a band that has only released one album, the setlist is usually pretty predictable – play as many tracks from the album as they can fit in the time they have, but although most of the songs Mental Circus play today are from the album, there are two that aren’t. The first was a very good cover of the Evanescence song “Bring me to life”, and they ended their set with a song that is new and not on the album – “Take the blame”. I definitely enjoyed Mental Circus today and look forward to seeing them again – hopefully they’ll manage some UK dates before too long.
Mental Circus setlist:
Lethal Empathy
Triggers & Cues
More to you
Bring me to life
Shards of you
Remember me
Into the depths
Take the blame
Next up were Skeptical Minds, a band I’ve seen several times before, and who are always great. Even while getting ready and sound checking they entertained the crowd. Karolina clowned around, laughing and joking, posing with the setlist and generally making the wait far more fun than change-overs should ever be.
When they got started then things got even better as they put in a superb performance. Karolina may be tiny but when on stage she has such a great stage presence that she seems to grow. With a small crowd (maybe 40 people), then many bands would shy away from trying to get the crowd to sing along or do things on cue as it very often fails embarrassingly, but Karolina is so good at working the crowd that the band do quite a bit of audience participation and get a great response as a result – very impressive work with a small crowd.
The whole band put in a great performance and really do impress. As well as songs from their albums and their new EP (Living in a movie), we get a couple of covers. First up is a great fun version of “Ace of Spades”, and they closed their set with an excellent cover of the Steppenwolf classic, “Born to be Wild”.
They were so good that they weren’t allowed to end then as the crowd demanded an encore, so we got “Alcohol” from their EP. After a group photo it was the end of their set.
Skeptical Minds setlist:
Alcohol (Intro)
The end
Skeleton key
madness
No way out
Broken dolls
Schizophrenia
Inertia
Someone new
Ace of spades
Quod
Living in a movie
Born to be wild
Encore:
Alcohol
Finally came the headliners (and organisers of todays gig), Magion. After a slow changeover while they got the keyboard sorted, they got things off to a start with “Shallow ground” before moving on to “Neverending winter”. With two guitarists, a bassist, drummer, singer and keyboards, the band barely fit on the small stage, but despite the slightly cramped conditions they still go all out to impress. I saw the band a couple of weeks earlier at Metal Female Voices Fest on a large stage with a big crowd, but their performance here is just as good – they aren’t going to give anything less than their best even though there’s a poor attendance. Where today beats MFVF is the fact that Magion have a much longer set here. Today they have a special treat for fans – they play “Break the silence” for the first time error, apologising in advance in case they mess it up (they didn’t – it sounded great). It’s a great set and they come back for a well deserved encore, playing “Masquerade”.
Magion setlist:
Shallow Ground
Neverending winter
Chance to change
Ever and a day
Greed
War of hearts
Break the silence
Untrue
Encore:
Masquerade
All three bands today put in great performances, and deserved a far bigger turnout, but those of us who made it to the gig got to enjoy a great afternoon of music. Today’s gig involved a long journey for me to get there, but none of the bands playing have yet played the UK, so sometimes if you want to see bands you have to travel abroad. Hopefully though some or all of the bands will venture over to the UK for a few shows in 2014 – we can certainly hope.
