Live @ Alcatraz, Milan 19/11/2007

November 19, Milan, in front of Alcatraz’s gate. An mono-coloured crow is waiting, some from the first hours of the day, others from some hour later. Some has still to arrive, to attend on of the most awaited concerts of this very rich period. Finnish metallers Sonata Arctica, a band that Milan loves particularly, is to perform tonight, supported by the Dutch Goth band Epica and by the little known Swedish power metal band Ride The Sky.
The crowd is of course mostly for the headliners, but a large amount of people supporting Epica might be seen. Anyhow, this is a concert not to be missed.
The gig started a little bit late, due to some technical problems (after all we are in Italy, what should we expect?), but it was well worthy. Ride The Sky threw out a nice performance, pure, fast Nordic school power metal. And it doesn’t surprise us at all since the amazing boy we can find behind the drums is none less than Uli Kusch, former Helloween, Gamma Ray and Masterplan drummer.
Their limit of course, stands also in their strongest point. Power metal is a genre that has been largely abused, and that has little more left to say, but that still has it’s amazing strength and character live, bringing always, when well played, a lovely act. The crowd reacted pretty well, even if still clearly saving its energy for later, and the exibition went nicely and smooth in its course. A nice given 6.50 for a band without particular shame or honour.

Then Epica came along. The band is considered to be one of the best in the new scene, guided by female singer Simone Simons and by growler and guitarist Mark Jansen, and it would have been a pleasurable gig, if not for the crazy crowd, pushing and pulling just to come and get nearer to the stage, and taking better pics of the band (I’ll have to admit that I’m still wandering how comes that Simone is always in a perfect pose in every picture take, as some girl in the crowd noticed). If you’d thought that a mosh-pit was impossible during a Goth gig, you’ll have to reconsider your idea after this. The aura of adoration that surrounds the young front-woman Simons is something that we didn’t really considered. The very beautiful girl was the attraction for many male in the audience, but also, as feared by some, from many fan-girls. Sometimes you would have thought it was their first concert (and for many it probably was considered the age of most Epica’s fan), since many of them pulled their strength to their limits even before the gig was halfway thru and had to be helped by the patient security guy. Back to the stage, the band gave a good act, both musically and visually, also helped in this point by a couple of fans airing their hair. The band seemed livelier when the main singer was not onstage, but this might be caused by a little illness of Simons, who, in fact, had several problems in the dates after this one. Still, if we really have a few critics to the band, is that in certain moments you could not but think about much more famous Nightwish, in the good old Tarja days. Simone never denied to be a huge fan of the now solo diva Tarja Turunen, who is a big inspiration for her, but we had hoped that she could find a more personal live act, especially since her surely beautiful voice is totally different from the finnish soprano’s. On the other side, while being a much better entertainer, Mark is much weaker vocal wise, with a quite flat growl that gives nothing more to the music. A particular mention, still, goes to the band members for the help the gave to the first rows of the crowd, asking not to push, and throwing bottles of water that resulted very helpful in many cases. Vote to the band 7.50. To the crowd 4.
 

And then finally, Sonata Arctica made their entrance, and the crowd went really wild, singing along wholeheartly all the gig and showing what great crowd Milan public really is. Recently orphans from the guitar virtuoso Jani Liimatainen, the band was feared to be less shining than before, since the red head was a fan favourite, and a big part of the heart of the show, but the “new guy” Elias Viljanen did an amazing job, showing that he can fit the big boots Jani left behind. If really something made evident that this guy hasn’t played with the band for a long time is that those part that he had to play unison with keyboard player Henkka Klingenberg weren’t perfectly on time… the two guys evidently haven’t played together long enough to be used one to another, and even if they were both on time with human drum machine Tommy Portimo, they weren’t perfectly together. Tony Kakko voice was amazingly good, leaving barely a memory of the first time when he could hardly stand half a gig before going totally berserk. Wisely used and controlled Tony’s voice is now light years far from what it used to be.
The gig went well and smooth, with a compact and lively (apart the bassist Marko Paasikoski, known not to be a to wild guy on stage :P) band, who gave their best to a crowd that was the largest of the tour, and, as Tony said, the loudest, as usual.  The set list was to kill, the only possible flaw the presence of only one song from the fourth album “Reckoning Night”, the furious “Don’t say a word”. The songs from the new album, opening duo “In black and white” and “Paid in full” (the latter being the last single), the masterpiece “Caleb” and the must have wolf song “It won’t fade” showed how the fear of many fans believing that the new, more complicated and not power album “Unia” could not be played live were wrong. A nice funny moment went on when Tony came onstage before the encore, and used the crowd as a human battery, performing a quite original version of Queen hymn “We will rock you” that the public sung as loud as they can.
 

Conclusion of the gig was, as usual, the “Vodka Song”, this time with the add of Finnish tune “Nukkumatti”, wishing goodnight to the crowd (Nukkumatti is finnish sandman, the man of sleep). Vote to the band 9, to the crowd 10 flat!