21-05-2011
Romein, Leeuwarden (NL)

By Laetitia

After reading only positive reviews and watching people drool over an album cover with a bunch of goats I was really curious about the new band of Mark Jansen ‘MaYan.’ Luckily for me, they were just about to start a co-headlining tour with Sons of Seasons. So on the day that the world ended I found myself travelling far far north with a friend to check out both bands.

The Frisian band Insidiae had the bad luck of playing a show only a few hours after the world was destroyed by a big, fat earthquake. This is probably the reason why the turn-up was poor (it was all evening, not just during Insidiae.) I managed to see only one song of this band because of interview obligations. (Interview) The music of Insidiae is best described as a blend between progressive and melodic death metal. In 2010 they released an EP, of actual decent quality. There isn’t much to say about a show of in total one song so the best thing you can do is check out the pictures below and listen to some songs on Myspace.

The first time I saw Sons of Seasons was on their tour with Epica some years ago. Back then, I don’t recall it to be very impressive, this time was the exact opposite.
During the intro, a girl in a wedding dress entered the stage (and later in a more vampire like outfit) as a showelement (honestly, not a very great one) after this, they played the song Bubonic Waltz and the band instantly put on a strong show. There weren’t a lot more people then during the first band and the crowd present wasn’t very cooperative when it came to clapping along and those kind of things. This didn’t hold Sons of Seasons back to still give it 100%. Henning Basse is besides an talented singer a charismatic perfomer. When performing live, details in the music of Sons of Seasons you can hear on the albums seem to get lost in translation, but the power of their live show makes up for that effortlessly.
It wasn’t a suprise when the band called on a special guest to perform the song Wintersmith with them (a song based on Terry Pratchett’s novel). After a little bit of a false start for Simone Simons and Henning Basse gave away a fine duet.

Slowly a bit more people gathered around in front of the stage for MaYan, which isn’t that odd with being half of Epica and having more great musicians at your disposal. Mister Mark Jansen proved to be a born frontman, he never once stopped interacting with the crowd or stopped having fun while performing, the same goes for the rest of the band!
Running on and off stage were Henning Basse (Sons of Seasons), Simone Simons and at-first-unknow-but –not-anymore Italian opera talent Laura Macri. The stage in the venue was a little bit to small for the full family of MaYan, which almost resulted in members tripping over each others feet. Musicwise MaYan reminded of Epica sometimes, but with a bit more technical death metal influences. The show and the songs gave me a postive impression.
Songs like Drown the Demon and Bite the Bullet resulted in a small mosh/dancepit, with a bunch of very wasted people. The audience made up for their lack of activity during MaYan, like Mark said ‘a small crowd, but enthousiastic.’ For MaYan the gig was another succes!