Words. Fail.
What looks like a drowned rat, smells of the henna hair dye (still a week later my hair smells like herbal mud when wet) but feels absolutely fabulous? Ile after ~half an hour walk home in the rain after an Anathema gig.
It was amazing. I fully expected to enjoy it - Anathema was one of the bands that Sina introduced to me back in 2004 and one of the few that I instantly liked, and I've been listening to them ever since, with varying levels of activity. But they're (or perhaps I should say were) not among my absolute top favourites. I pretty much planned to go see them with Sina because Sina loves them, but then Sina decided he couldn't afford it, and I went anyway just for the heck of it. And I am ever so glad that I did, because it was all kinds of awesome and great and perfect.
But anyway let's start at the beginning. I was at the venue early, had to wait outside for 5-10 minutes in the rain, but it wasn't too bad. I'd never been to Pakkahuone before, and some dumb people had confused me with incorrect information that the entrance had been moved to some other side of the building so I was stressed out over finding the right door. It was the same, very obvious door as always (although I'd never been there myself I had seen people queuing outside), though, and everything was fine. Once inside I took a glance at the merch and was going to buy a shirt, but then I remembered that after buying a chocolate bar before coming to the venue I no longer had 20€, and therefore not enough cash on me to do so. So I didn't buy a shirt. Obviously. Instead I just sort of drifted towards the stage and secured a spot in the front after seeing that some others were already doing the same.
The support act was a Finnish band called Von Hertzen Brothers, and I pretty much only knew them by name. Their show began well: these five dudes (as in the band) walk onto the stage, two with guitars, and out of the remaining three one takes his place behind the drum kit and one at the command station calling itself synth... and the third one looks around, turns back and shouts something, and someone comes running, and hands him the bass guitar. :D I knew one song out of their entire set, and even that song I hadn't consciously known to be related to VHB, just something I'd heard on the radio. I enjoyed their show, though, not the least because the lead singer Mikko Von Hertzen looks like Sawyer from Lost. (I'll post pics as soon as I can find a way to make my camera communicate with my computer.)
Well, not much else to say about VHB, as I really didn't know their music at all. After that, it was some 45 minutes I think until Anathema. Some girls behind me were talking loudly, complaining that they couldn't get to the front row. Or well, one of them was complaining and the other was just, I dunno, agreeing. Then the complaining one noticed that the couple on my right spoke some language that wasn't Finnish or English, and started talking about them in Finnish, saying stuff like, "I wonder if they know Finnish? I wish they'd go away so we could get their spot. Go away. My spot. Go away. See, they don't understand what I'm saying." At which point I was rather embarrassed to be of the same race as such a twat. I think I glanced over my shoulder and gave her an unimpressed look, and she changed subject, and for the next while went on about how she neeeeds to get as close to Vincent as possible! I tried to stop listening. But... I'm not sure about this, because in that kind of a crowd, people accidentally elbow and poke each other... But during the time between the bands, my hair was tugged at so many times that I find it hard to believe it just getting accidentally stuck on something all those times. Ugh. I ignored it, though, because after all, why would anyone...
And then Anathema finally got on stage. They opened with Untouchable (parts 1 & 2) from the latest album, as I would have guessed had I been guessing anything. It was awesome. Well, there was some unfortunate sound incident with the female singer, as in that she was completely inaudible at first, but after it got fixed it was nothing short of amazing. The whole "I had to let you go, to the setting sun" thing. Loved it. But then, the following four songs after that were from the previous album, which I've barely listened to, it's my least favourite new era Anathema album. They were still good, and turned from merely good to absolutely amazing in live situation, because feeling, holy shit, I swear the singer sounded at times even better than on the album. And his voice is pure love. After that, they played some older stuff, from Judgement, which was awesome too, but I was still waiting to hear my favourites from Weather Systems. And then... The three of them, my absolute favourites from the latest album, straight one after another. Lightning Song, The Storm Before the Calm, The Beginning and the End. And precisely in the order of preference - as in the most perfect last. Then a couple more songs from the previous album, and a couple from A Natural Disaster, including the title track. Closer is one song I never would have expected to work so well live, but damn, it did. Then they left the stage, but came back and played three more songs.
And I dunno, I just have to talk about Vincent's voice for a bit, because you know, I've always liked it well enough, but not until now did I ever fully appreciate how specially amazing it is. Beautiful, of course, but asdf I'm lacking adjectives here, I mean, he's capable of portraying such warmth and light with his voice, like all the cheesy stuff along the lines of "all that I know is I love you" (in Thin Air), which made me borderline-facepalm on the album, but hearing him sing it live, and with feeling, it was... transformed. If sunlight had a human voice, it would sound something like Vincent Cavanagh. On the other hand, he does desperation brilliantly as well - not the bleak sort of desperation (which Aaron does) but passionate, urgent desperation - think for example the "silence is raging" passage from The Beginning and the End. And it's just amazing.
The set in its entirety (thankfully I don't have to rely on my memory, got the actual setlist here):
Untouchable, parts 1&2
Thin Air
Dreaming Light
Everything
Angels Walk Among Us
Deep
Emotional Winter/Wings of God
Lightning Song
The Storm Before the Calm
The Beginning and the End
Universal
Closer
A Natural Disaster
A Simple Mistake
Encores:
Internal Landscapes
Flying
Fragile Dreams
After they were gone, the non-Finnish-speaking couple and I hung back in hopes of getting the set lists, which we did, although we had to wait a while. Well, I was not in a hurry. (And while I'm sorry for Sina for missing it, in a selfish way I'm glad he wasn't there, because he would have got impatient and wanted to leave. Alone I could wait around precisely as long as I had to.) Then I drifted by the merch stand again, and Danny was there signing stuff and being generally awesome. I didn't have anything to sign, well, except maybe the setlist, but I thought fuck it. I did hang around to see if I could bother anyone for a photo, but Danny seemed quite preoccupied with basically everyone, so I didn't want to butt in. After a while I spotted the bass player - Jamie? - approaching, and asked if I could get a picture with him. Some random passerby was kind enough to take the pic. I stammered a thanks and shook hands with Jamie and he vanished off again. I returned to hanging at the back of the crowd surrounding Danny, waiting for a chance to ask him for a pic. My patience was eventually rewarded, when pretty much everyone and their dog had had their album booklets signed. He was really sweet, we actually talked for a while. He thought he'd met me before - he said he remembered my hair - and I was sorry to inform him that he must be mistaken because this was the first time I'd ever seen Anathema. I can't remember why, but then suddenly we were talking about Tolkien and The Kalevala, which was a bit random but very awesome. Again a random person was kind enough to take a picture for me (downside of going alone: nobody to use the camera), and then the random person took over chatting to Danny and some other people showed up as well and I figured my audience was at an end.
And then I walked home. It was raining. The walk took some 25-30 minutes. It wasn't cold, though, so it was all good. But yeah, I really did look like a drowned rat (if drowned rats wore eyeliner) by the time I got home. But I had an absolutely great evening, and Anathema certainly gained a devoted fan tonight. If I was rich, I'd drive down to Helsinki tomorrow to see them again, but as it stands, I'll just have to be happy with tonight... and I am! And I'm definitely going to see them again when they next come to Tampere (or Finland in general, even if they skip Tampere next time around for whatever reason).
It was amazing. I fully expected to enjoy it - Anathema was one of the bands that Sina introduced to me back in 2004 and one of the few that I instantly liked, and I've been listening to them ever since, with varying levels of activity. But they're (or perhaps I should say were) not among my absolute top favourites. I pretty much planned to go see them with Sina because Sina loves them, but then Sina decided he couldn't afford it, and I went anyway just for the heck of it. And I am ever so glad that I did, because it was all kinds of awesome and great and perfect.
But anyway let's start at the beginning. I was at the venue early, had to wait outside for 5-10 minutes in the rain, but it wasn't too bad. I'd never been to Pakkahuone before, and some dumb people had confused me with incorrect information that the entrance had been moved to some other side of the building so I was stressed out over finding the right door. It was the same, very obvious door as always (although I'd never been there myself I had seen people queuing outside), though, and everything was fine. Once inside I took a glance at the merch and was going to buy a shirt, but then I remembered that after buying a chocolate bar before coming to the venue I no longer had 20€, and therefore not enough cash on me to do so. So I didn't buy a shirt. Obviously. Instead I just sort of drifted towards the stage and secured a spot in the front after seeing that some others were already doing the same.
The support act was a Finnish band called Von Hertzen Brothers, and I pretty much only knew them by name. Their show began well: these five dudes (as in the band) walk onto the stage, two with guitars, and out of the remaining three one takes his place behind the drum kit and one at the command station calling itself synth... and the third one looks around, turns back and shouts something, and someone comes running, and hands him the bass guitar. :D I knew one song out of their entire set, and even that song I hadn't consciously known to be related to VHB, just something I'd heard on the radio. I enjoyed their show, though, not the least because the lead singer Mikko Von Hertzen looks like Sawyer from Lost. (I'll post pics as soon as I can find a way to make my camera communicate with my computer.)
Well, not much else to say about VHB, as I really didn't know their music at all. After that, it was some 45 minutes I think until Anathema. Some girls behind me were talking loudly, complaining that they couldn't get to the front row. Or well, one of them was complaining and the other was just, I dunno, agreeing. Then the complaining one noticed that the couple on my right spoke some language that wasn't Finnish or English, and started talking about them in Finnish, saying stuff like, "I wonder if they know Finnish? I wish they'd go away so we could get their spot. Go away. My spot. Go away. See, they don't understand what I'm saying." At which point I was rather embarrassed to be of the same race as such a twat. I think I glanced over my shoulder and gave her an unimpressed look, and she changed subject, and for the next while went on about how she neeeeds to get as close to Vincent as possible! I tried to stop listening. But... I'm not sure about this, because in that kind of a crowd, people accidentally elbow and poke each other... But during the time between the bands, my hair was tugged at so many times that I find it hard to believe it just getting accidentally stuck on something all those times. Ugh. I ignored it, though, because after all, why would anyone...
And then Anathema finally got on stage. They opened with Untouchable (parts 1 & 2) from the latest album, as I would have guessed had I been guessing anything. It was awesome. Well, there was some unfortunate sound incident with the female singer, as in that she was completely inaudible at first, but after it got fixed it was nothing short of amazing. The whole "I had to let you go, to the setting sun" thing. Loved it. But then, the following four songs after that were from the previous album, which I've barely listened to, it's my least favourite new era Anathema album. They were still good, and turned from merely good to absolutely amazing in live situation, because feeling, holy shit, I swear the singer sounded at times even better than on the album. And his voice is pure love. After that, they played some older stuff, from Judgement, which was awesome too, but I was still waiting to hear my favourites from Weather Systems. And then... The three of them, my absolute favourites from the latest album, straight one after another. Lightning Song, The Storm Before the Calm, The Beginning and the End. And precisely in the order of preference - as in the most perfect last. Then a couple more songs from the previous album, and a couple from A Natural Disaster, including the title track. Closer is one song I never would have expected to work so well live, but damn, it did. Then they left the stage, but came back and played three more songs.
And I dunno, I just have to talk about Vincent's voice for a bit, because you know, I've always liked it well enough, but not until now did I ever fully appreciate how specially amazing it is. Beautiful, of course, but asdf I'm lacking adjectives here, I mean, he's capable of portraying such warmth and light with his voice, like all the cheesy stuff along the lines of "all that I know is I love you" (in Thin Air), which made me borderline-facepalm on the album, but hearing him sing it live, and with feeling, it was... transformed. If sunlight had a human voice, it would sound something like Vincent Cavanagh. On the other hand, he does desperation brilliantly as well - not the bleak sort of desperation (which Aaron does) but passionate, urgent desperation - think for example the "silence is raging" passage from The Beginning and the End. And it's just amazing.
The set in its entirety (thankfully I don't have to rely on my memory, got the actual setlist here):
Untouchable, parts 1&2
Thin Air
Dreaming Light
Everything
Angels Walk Among Us
Deep
Emotional Winter/Wings of God
Lightning Song
The Storm Before the Calm
The Beginning and the End
Universal
Closer
A Natural Disaster
A Simple Mistake
Encores:
Internal Landscapes
Flying
Fragile Dreams
After they were gone, the non-Finnish-speaking couple and I hung back in hopes of getting the set lists, which we did, although we had to wait a while. Well, I was not in a hurry. (And while I'm sorry for Sina for missing it, in a selfish way I'm glad he wasn't there, because he would have got impatient and wanted to leave. Alone I could wait around precisely as long as I had to.) Then I drifted by the merch stand again, and Danny was there signing stuff and being generally awesome. I didn't have anything to sign, well, except maybe the setlist, but I thought fuck it. I did hang around to see if I could bother anyone for a photo, but Danny seemed quite preoccupied with basically everyone, so I didn't want to butt in. After a while I spotted the bass player - Jamie? - approaching, and asked if I could get a picture with him. Some random passerby was kind enough to take the pic. I stammered a thanks and shook hands with Jamie and he vanished off again. I returned to hanging at the back of the crowd surrounding Danny, waiting for a chance to ask him for a pic. My patience was eventually rewarded, when pretty much everyone and their dog had had their album booklets signed. He was really sweet, we actually talked for a while. He thought he'd met me before - he said he remembered my hair - and I was sorry to inform him that he must be mistaken because this was the first time I'd ever seen Anathema. I can't remember why, but then suddenly we were talking about Tolkien and The Kalevala, which was a bit random but very awesome. Again a random person was kind enough to take a picture for me (downside of going alone: nobody to use the camera), and then the random person took over chatting to Danny and some other people showed up as well and I figured my audience was at an end.
And then I walked home. It was raining. The walk took some 25-30 minutes. It wasn't cold, though, so it was all good. But yeah, I really did look like a drowned rat (if drowned rats wore eyeliner) by the time I got home. But I had an absolutely great evening, and Anathema certainly gained a devoted fan tonight. If I was rich, I'd drive down to Helsinki tomorrow to see them again, but as it stands, I'll just have to be happy with tonight... and I am! And I'm definitely going to see them again when they next come to Tampere (or Finland in general, even if they skip Tampere next time around for whatever reason).