Surely this year can be called the year of Doom and the year of worthy concerts. Was there a time when managers were afraid of losing money with a Paradise Lost gig? A large number of other interesting events and sharp criticism against the two previous gigs caused some hesitation. But still popularity is a very relative and changeable concept and one can easily imagine a concert of a legendary band of early 90’s who brought up a new trend in metal, a trend which was followed by numerous other bands including Amorphis, Crematory and Lake of Tears. Gloomy Englishmen visited both capitals. And this third visit to Russia caused a lot of rumors and doubts due to the reasons mentioned above. Isn’t DK Gorbunova too big for the guests? What will the band do without Gregor, who had fallen ill right before the concert? What will they play? the latest album? Or will they do something from the past like good old Dio? Will there be a warm-up and who will play there? A great number of questions got their answers on the last day of September.
There were two bands at the warm-up and at 19:20 Dark Princess began to play – a young band with their own style but at the moment a little too young for supporting Paradise Lost. Besides dull guitars, tension and weak performance I should mention that the vocals need improvement and the band’s gothic style is more likely to attract people of petty interests rather than those who came to see one of the greatest bands of early 90’s. Around 500-600 people were listening to Dark Princess, whose music reminded me of latest Therion. I suppose that if Forgive Me Not were the first to play the crowd would have been bigger.
Some time later Ruslan and Tanya appeared – Melancholy. A good example to follow. For the last five years it has been one of the most interesting bands full of innovation. Having recorded three albums they are now writing the material the fourth one. Their popularity in Russia and other countries is supported by the upcoming tour. The band has two vocalists and plays doom with some elements of alternative and nu-metal. You might have seen it at the Lake of Tears’ gig. More information can be found here - http://melancholy.ru and also there’re some songs for downloading. At the concert they did ‘Die Forgive’, ‘From Within’, ‘No Ordinary Love’ and a couple of songs from the future album. It was hard to believe that after an enduring pause Tanya could save the sparkles in the eyes and her natural beauty. After ‘Master of the Game’ the band left the stage.
‘Don't Belong’ was the first and the crowd started to sing, the title-tracks are always there playing inside your head. The second song was also from the latest album which reminds me of Draconian Times. Hundreds of people in the hall and on the balconies were listening and waiting – this band has a lot to sing about and it’s not just five or ten songs, there are dozens. But time is never enough and it’s the problem of all concerts, moreover the managers are always pressing. Five songs from the latest album one after another is nice of course, nevertheless the crowd was waiting not only for ‘As I Die’ but for some old stuff... and it happened. No need to tell about these songs, they were ‘As I Die’, ‘True Belief’, ‘Hallowed Land’, ‘Last Time’. If you like Paradise Lost you can’t resist singing them. The concert continued. And though the sound wasn’t as good and the session player made some mistakes – this wasn’t so important, the main thing was that the audience finally got what hey had been waiting for since the fist gig. Unfortunately everything comes to an end. After playing a little longer than an hour the band finished with ‘Say Just Words’ and headed for St. Petersburg. …We Want More!!!!
