25-11-2012
013, Tilburg (NL)

By: Ingrid
When I first heard about this tour it was because I’m a big fan of Moonspell. When I saw the other bands that were confirmed my first thought was ‘This is going to be a loooooong night’. Arriving with that thought in 013, all that could happen was this night to turn out better than expected.

When the first band, Scar Of The Sun, started playing, there weren’t much people in the venue yet. But well, the people that weren’t there yet didn’t miss much. The singer of this band could use a couple of singing lessons, but music wise they did an okay job. And though they stood enthusiastically on stage, they didn’t really get the crowd going. But well, since there barely was any crowd, this wasn’t a surprise.

Next up was Lake Of Tears. All I knew of this band, was that I heard their name before, and that was where it was about to end for my knowledge of them. Nevertheless I was very pleasantly surprised. My this-is-going-to-be-a-loooooong-night thought suddenly changed into a this-might-become-an-interesting-night thought. A lot of tempo changes in the different songs, performed very well by the musicians made it very interesting to watch. Especially at the end when they played the very slow song House Of Setting Song in between two more powerful songs, it was really enchanting.
My mood definitely turned around.

I’ve only seen Swallow The Sun once before in my life, and ever since, I’ve been avoiding them on purpose because I almost fell asleep while I was standing when watching their show. But that was five years ago, and a lot can happen in five years. Including me finding out this evening that Swallow The Sun isn’t such a bad band, as they were in my memory, at all! To make a confession: I actually really liked it. Part of that might be that I have deepest respect for their drummer Kai Hahto because I know how great his drum skills are from his other bands. But apart from that, the band just simply ruled the stage. A friend recommended me the song Labyrinth of London (Horror pt. IV), which indeed was beautifully performed. After this show, their fan base grew with at least one person!

Finally it was time for the band came for in the first place: Moonspell. The band celebrates their 20 years of existence this year and after their most amazing show on Wacken I was dying to see them again. Opening with Axis Mundi, singer Fernando entered the stage in a suit of armor. Since it was the last day of the tour, the bands pranked around with each other a bit and the guys from Swallow The Sun also entered the stage looking like Fernando, but then covered in aluminiumfoil. Anyway, after the first song he got rid of it and the band performed some songs of their newest album like Alpha Noir and Lickanthrope, as well as the well-known classics like Opium, Wolfshade (A Wearwolf Masquerade) and of course Alma Mater. The audience got completely crazy and danced and sang along on all songs. Their performance was extremely powerful and very well done. For me, and as well as for most people it seemed, Moonspell was the headliner of the day, and a lot of people seemed disappointed when last song of the evening, Full Moon Madness, set in way too early.
All that’s left to say is to give some credits to the dancing skills of Pedro Paixão.

Last band of the evening was Pain. Now I don’t know much about Pain, but everybody told me it was really going to be worthwhile, and there would be a lot of dancing. Well when the tape started playing and Same Old Song set in, I indeed felt a bit like dancing. But I was a bit tired and there wasn’t much movement among the other people so no dancing for me. In fact, the audience stayed very tame and quiet, and in fact, there wasn’t much dancing going on for the entire evening. The band wasn’t playing at its best, and the sound wasn’t all too good. With every new song when the tape started playing, it sounded really promising, but as soon as the band self came in, it went downwards again. After a few songs I went to the back and sat down to watch some more. Watching the show like this made it better. When you by now think that Pain gave a terrible show, I must tell you that this is most certainly not the case. Most blame goes to the sound not being that good, but the enthusiasm of the band made up for it. Of course some of their colleagues from other bands went pranking on stage again which made it even more entertaining. Short before they were finished I left, only to look back on an unexpected nice evening!

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