Epica, Silver Church, 29.03.11

And I saw Epica… Man Simone sucks! I never saw her as an outstanding singer, but last night she couldn’t carry a tune for the life of her! Her operatic voice was half decent, but her chest voice sounded terrible. Hoarse, strained… the long high notes she was trying to sing were probably the worst sound I’ve ever heard coming out of the throat of a lead singer with some pretence.

She should just stand there and look pretty, she’s way better at that. Or at least I think so, because I didn’t see a damn thing. I’ve never been to a concert where I literally couldn’t see a thing. There was always at least… something. This time I don’t even know what they were wearing. I heard that Oliver Palotai was going to replace their keyboard player on this tour, I don’t even know if that was Oliver on stage or someone else… So not having any stage presence to  delight myself with, all I had to focus on was the actual singing. The instrumental and choir parts were awesome (I re-discovered how much I love them), Mark was actually the better singer for once, they were friendly, the atmosphere was exaggeratedly crowded, but welcoming, but since I couldn’t see anything and Simone was terrible, I was rather disappointed. I think most of the audience was too, because a lot of people left before the concert was over. 

I didn’t like the setlist much either. Waaaay too many songs from the last album and way too few from the earlier ones. No Chasing the Dragon, no Fools of Damnation, no Mother of Light, no Quietus, no Feint, no Illusive Consensus, just to name a few. Tides of Time should’ve been dropped, it bored the shit out of everyone (Simone should stay the eff away from ballads, she turns them into a cheese fest). And the idea to cover The Imperial March and make it Epica-ish was just terrible, I was laughing hysterically when I heard it. Of course, half of the audience didn’t even realise it’s not an Epica song (or if they did, they certainly didn’t know where it’s from, they all looked baffled). 

And for crying out loud, will they stop trying to pretend they’re heavy? They’re not heavy in the freaking slightest! And there’s nothing wrong with that, but please, for the love of God, just accept what you are and stop trying to come out as something you’re not just to please the stupid masses that think heavy = cool.
Mark: “do you guys want a heavy song?”/ Me: “you don’t have a heavy song!”/ The silly audience: “yeaaaaaah”/ Mark: “ok, here’s The Obsessive Devotion”/ Me: *facepalm* 

Simone: “ok, the next two songs are going to be heavy!”. And then the boring-absolutely-not-heavy-in-the-slightest beginning of Consign to Oblivion comes next. Me and my boyfriend were already laughing. Yeah, it was probably the worst concert I’ve ever been to (at least counting those of bands I actually went to see, not opening acts or stuff like that).