Concert Reviews

bodhrandude

Hopefully this is the appropriate forum to post, I want to try something similar to whats done in the Electric Picnic forum, was thinking of starting a thread called Review the last gig you were at, the idea being a short concise review talking about a few moments of a gig and anyone can contribute. If anything it will add another interesting thread to Gigs and Events, what do you think mods and users.

poundhound

Black Sabbath, Odyssey Arena, Belfast, 12/12/13

Ive been very fortunate in my 26 years of gig going to see practically every act Ive ever wanted to see and in most cases, numerous times (David Bowie 10 times, Neil Young 9 times etc etc). While there were some acts that got away (Queen with Freddie Mercury springs to mind), Black Sabbath remained ever elusive. They never played Ireland with Ozzy fronting them, until 2013.

I was genuinely excited to see true icons in the flesh and given Tony Iommi's health and Ozzy, well.. being Ozzy, I was never actually expecting this gig to happen, but happen it did and it exceeded all expectations.

Crystal clear, deafening, doom laden riff's by the creaters of heavy metal and fronted by the demonic voice that is Ozzy, I couldn't help thinking that old men like this shouldn't be this good. "Iron Man", "Snowblind", "Black Sabbath", "NIB", "Paranoid" etc were all belted out with aplomb.

Anyone rueing the absence of original drummer Bill Ward before the gig, cant but have helped thinking it was probably for the better. He would never have been able to drive the show on like Tommy Clufetos.

I left the Odyssey that night thrilled to have witnessed one of the true greats and satisfied that my "bands to see live" list is now officially complete.

bodhrandude

Good stuff Poundhound can a mod change the thread title to Review the last gig you were at, cheers.

bodhrandude

Berliner Anstam supporting for Moderat kicked of with some nice dreamy ambient drum n bass, a similar buzz to Tourist who closed the main stage of Body&Soul at Electric Picnic last year. Nice chilled synths and electronic sounds pleasing to the ear but with nice well measured beats to keep you alert.

Fellow Berliner's Moderat were given a great welcome since they last blew Irish audiences away at the Electric Picnic 2009, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife as everyone was so psyched up to see this act.

They kicked off with the final track from the new record, This Time, a build up of cadences and backward loops that melts into a musique concrete. Moderat uses a lot of industrial sounds but its also very emotive, gritty and dub steppish, but completely different than the usual dub step variety. A New Error got the pulses going with its throbbing beat, the opener from their first album and straight into Milk, a techno crazed train journey with their accompanying visuals displayed in the backdrop, fast moving white lines moving symmetrically with the sounds and a backward loop ambiance that just keeps on building.

Bad Kingdom, a dub step croon with Apparat giving his first vocal for the night, its another track that keeps the momentum going strong, well chosen wub wubs adding a bassy undercurrent to the track and Apparat's singing in fine fettle.

The band revisit the first album again for a few numbers, the thumping Seamonkey with its beautiful resonant notes, Versions from the new album and back to the first for Rusty Nails, one of my favourite Moderat songs. How do you describe such a song, for me, it has elements of the Pet Shop Boys meets Kraftwerk and an Aphex Twin, Squarepusher thing gong on with beats, more like a dreamy uplifting ambient techno. I love the bendy synths in this, I could listen to it forever.

Moderat use a very subtle light show, a lot of the time the stage is quite dark but the lights and effects are chosen well, when the band drop Gita the backdrop shows a shimmering universe, the stars in the backdrop act like miniature lasers, growing intense as the song reaches its crescendo.

The band finished with two tracks from the new one, Let in the light and the symphonic Therapy giving a nice balance of tracks from both records and a well appreciative audience, I hope they make the trip back in the summer for one of the Irish festivals. I would have loved to have went to the Modeselektor after party DJ set at the Button Factory but had to hop on a bus back to Galway after midnight.