Set Sail to Mystery Tour: The Vision Bleak, Alcest & Fjoergyn
By: Laetitia and Ingrid
09-04-2010
Venue: Romein, Leeuwarden

It was not very crowded when the first band, the germans from Fjoergyn, started to play.
Not even half the venue was filled. A shame because Fjoergyn makes lovely music. Though it is a band that you’d probably appreciate more on cd because it simply sounds better on cd, because it is so focussed on the orchestra. Also, it didn’t help that the sound of the leadguitar was too soft and the orchestra’s too much on the background. They didn’t play any song from the album ‘Ernte im Herbst’. Which was disappointing for me because in my opinion it is the best album of the band. They played songs from ‘Sade et Masoch’ (like Narziss (T) ), but mostly from their newest album ‘Jahreszeiten’ (Auf Bald…, Wie Jahr um Jahr). Most of the crowd disliked Fjoergyn. Some people called it ‘boring’ (Which just shows they have a bad taste really ). Others did like it, there some headbangers and people in the front of the stage. (You can count them on one hand though). Nevertheless it wasn’t a bad show. I thought it was nice to see Fjoergyn on stage and hearing some of the new songs made me very curious about the latest album.

Second band playing and fairly uknown to me was Alcest. After hearing all the talk about ‘how great Alcest is’, I got a little bit curious. Somehow a lot of people appeared from out of nowhere (I guess they were all hiding in the smoking area) and it actually seemed crowded in the Romein. Alcest started out nice, the music sounded good and so did the vocals (Those guys can sing HIGH!) The music is not really my taste but they gave away a very good show. Alcest plays nice and most of the time slower music, with guitars. Sometimes it reminded me of Agalloch. The kind of music that you would listen to and relax or read a book. But I didn’t bring a book and maybe that is why Alcest started to bore me at some point. Alcest played some songs from their most known album ‘Souvenirs d’un autre monde’(Printemps Emeraude), but also played some songs from their new album that was just released before the tour on March 29th ‘Écailles de Lune’(Écailles de Lune – Part 1, Percées de lumière)The last song they played was a shortened version of Elevation, from the EP ‘Le Secret’. Most of the people in the Romein obviously came for Alcest and they got a great live show from this band.

Poor guys from The Vision Bleak. When Alcest finished, a lot of the crowd disappeared again and there were not a lot more people then during Fjoergyn. Kind of sucks, being the headliner. All dressed up as half black metallers (they forgot the black paint) in somewhat gothic looking clothes, they entered the stage. I never heard anything of this band before and at first, I didn’t like so much. The vocals reminded me of Rammstein; and the musically speaking, it sounded awesome. So when I got used to the vocals, I appreciated the music much more. The played a varied set, with ofcourse some songs of their upcoming album ‘Set Sail To Mystery’. Sadly for the Vision Bleak, the band of the evening really was Alcest. I wonder if that was the reason why they didn’t come back for a encore?