Katatonia_Moonspell_Minnesota2006

I’ve noticed in the media on how this show is highly regarded and a little hyped up, but not because of Moonspell, but because this is Katatonia’s first US tour. Online, all I see is Katatonia this, Katatonia that. At the show, most people where there with Katatonia shirts and talking about their favorite Katatonia song. To be honest, I’ve seen Moonspell twice, I liked them the first time when they played this very club with Lacuna Coil back in 2001, I thought they were alright and I saw them again with Opeth on their “Antidote” tour and I was bored of their show, meaning they weren’t that good. I was curious as to why they were headlining. Daylight Dies I haven’t heard but from what I had gathered from the people who have heard them, they were going to be great. And Cold Colours…well I’ve seen them more than a few times.

Before I go on, I must say that I am not much of a photographer. I know there were a few smudges on my lense, but being that it was a small, digital lense I didn’t want to mess it up, or make it worse, by attempting to clean it myself.

Cold Colours opened them night with the best song off their new demo, “Silent Dream.” If you want to hear this track, I suggest you do so by going to their myspace site. I thought they sounded weird tonight as opposed to other nights. Could it be the lack of staging? I thought that the band needed some presence big time. Unfortunately the crowd was feeling the same thing I was where, we saw the band, we heard the band, but we just couldn’t feel the band. Cold Colours played flawlessly despite having almost no place to move around. The best way of describing this band is to make a band like Sentenced and make them American. I’ve seen the band play better shows, but I should say, this is a band to watch.

I have to admit, the band logo for Daylight Dies didn’t inspire me to look into them further. Now, I know what you are going to say, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” But for me, a band logo is a symbol of what the band might sound like and having a Bauhaus style logo didn’t exactly intrigue me. However, the band was brilliant. They began their show with something I don’t see at every show….tons and tons of smoke. With that, their sound guy or lighting guy added some yellow and orange lights making them give off an eerie presence! In combination of music that sounded like an American version of Opeth, it was absolutely perfect. Okay, maybe not as technical as Opeth, but just as moody. I had my head banging through out their set! Around this time, the club was starting to fill up. It was filling up to the point where I couldn’t move around and take different photos of the band without losing my spot. The singer mainly growled, the band played fast when they wanted to and I could hear every note by every player. The bass was perfect, the drums where perfect and the guitars…can’t go wrong. For me, I felt this band as being original and it went perfectly with these bands. Frankly, I am surprised this band doesn’t get more attention. When the lead player solo’d, it added something to the song and wasn’t doing it just to solo. I highly recommend checking out this band! If you like bands like Opeth, Katatonia, Moonspell, Sentenced or anything dark, dreary, gothic, moody or whatever, Daylight Dies will not disappoint!

I didn’t know quite what to expect when Katatonia walked up on stage. Were they going to play a moody or depressing set? Were they going to play stuff off of “The Great Cold Distance”? Band just kind of jumped on stage after a brief intro and went into, “Leaders.” Which took the whole place down. The crowd was very satisfied. The singer sounded just as good live as he did on CD as did the rest of the band. I was shocked at that because I know that not every band can do that. I could hear the bass clearer live than I could on CD, which is something, I rather enjoyed because it enhanced the band. About the only thing I didn’t like about their show was that the singer never really moved around. He would headbang form time to time, but he seemed to be a lot like Ozzy on stage and just kind of stand where the microphone was and never really moving far from it. Katatonia played all the good songs off their new CD: They played “Deliberation,” My Twin,” Leaders,” Soils Song,” and “July.” The song that really stuck out was “Soils Song.” It was VERY moody and was just done to sheer brilliance that it gave me goose bumps all over again. The band also played another personal and fan favorite, “Dead House.” It was an older song and I am not familiar from which album it comes from, but I heard it in 1999 on a Century Media compilation CD and it took my breath away then as they played it tonight! They also played two songs from Viva Emptiness that I recognized but off the top of my head I can’t think of the names but it was the first two tracks off that album. The band concluded their set shortly after. I thought the show was good but it wasn’t worth the hype. I would recommend seeing them, I recommend to everyone to buy their CD’s, but I think the band sounds better on CD than they do live. Not that I am complaining but they didn’t wow me and if I were a new fan, never hearing them before, I might not have been impressed.

Unfortunately, half the crowd left after Katatonia was done, leaving a half empty club for Moonspell. Which is a damn shame because Moonspell opened up with “Finesterra,” the opening track off their new CD, “Memorial.” And they just tore it up (see video clip)! It caught me off guard on how great this band sounded. They continued to play songs off Memorial like; “Memento Mori” came right after that. Now, Moonspell has been around for a long time and they have many CDs. But much like the last time I saw them, they played more than a few songs off of “Wolfheart” and I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t familiar with the CD and were just banging out heads just because. After a few more songs off CD’s of theirs I don’t have, they stopped; the band walked off stage except the drummer, and started to play “Proliferation.” It was quite theatrical and it was a little different then what it sounds like on CD because the guitar player kicked in as well as the bass player and made that song thick! As they push through another track. At this point, I’ve noticed that this band was right to headline. Their show was much better than the other bands tonight. It felt more like a “Show” rather than, “hey, lets go up and play, make fans happy and leave.” Moonspell had strobe lights, limited smoke, and great lighting. The set list was perfect for the night. My favorite song of the night wasn’t “Deliberation” from Katatonia or “Silent Dream” from Cold Colours, and it wasn’t “Finesterra,” although I’ve listened to that song 10 times since the night of the show. The song of the night for me was “Nocturna” off their “Darkness and Hope” CD. Truth be told, the whole crowd that was there just lit up. Everyone got into it because Moonspell hadn’t played anything off that album all night. Truth be told, that was the main reason I didn’t like Moonspell the last time I saw them, it was because they didn’t play anything off that great album. Matter of fact, if Moonspell hadn’t played this song, I wouldn’t have written this glowing review. After that song, the band did their encore thing…which to me is stupid. Most large bands do this and it just delays the show longer than it has to. They came back and played the second track off “Antidote” then the band was pretty much done after that. Moonspell had played a great set, their stage presence was on the money and despite the fact that half the crowd left, the band was happy to play for all 35-50 people. My hat is off to them, most bands would have gotten pissed and just phoned in their performance. They played a longer set then they were allotted, but we were happy.

Overall, I think everyone should see all these bands. It was a great night altogether. Daylight Dies was a great surprise. Katatonia was too hyped up but the crowd got what they wanted. And Moonspell was fantastic. I also think everyone should check out Cold Colours because the local bands need love too and they are not the typical American act.

Matthew Haumschild

Daylight Dies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxKbHYAReq8

Katatonia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMY8vP7_cMo

Moonspell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHUE38lWpcI

Cold Colours:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHugbQHhoDM

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