Primordial, While Heaven Wept, Alcest @ Doornroosje, Nijmegen

Primordial, While Heaven Wept, Alcest

31-05-2011
Doornroosje, Nijmegen

Review: by Gur
Photos by: Tessa Nicolai

Going to a gig on tuesdaynight, I won’t say it’s a first but it doesn’t happen often. It didn’t seem to be a problem for most people because the venue was filled with people. It wasn’t packed but there was a nice crowd. The touring bands were in Tilburg the night before which is not to far from Nijmegen and there was also a good crowd, so you can safely say Holland was enthusiastic for this tour.

First band of the evening was Alcest. Alcest caught my attention in 2010 with their beautiful artwork on “Écailles de Lune”. Their dreamy music combined with strong guitars took me away to a different place and still is great music for a rainy sunday morning. They have such fragile songs that I wondered how they’re going to perform them. I hoped the sensitivity will not disappear in a wall of sound and it didn’t. Alcest played the stars from the heavens and with the smoke and the blue light took me right to ‘d’un autre monde’ as their 2007 is called. One song reminded me of Summoning, wouldn’t it be great if they would cover a Summoning song?! Being the first band they could only play for like 35 minutes. A great performance.

Next on the bill was While Heaven Wept. While Heaven Wept has an impressive biography on their website in which Tom Philips describes the origin of the band. Where WHW only caught my attention a few years back they seem to be musicians for a very very long time. You can sure hear it in the music they make but will they live up to it on stage?
WHW has a stronger and lower guitar sound so the energy shifted a bit. The played a nice set, and I wasn’t really sure what the keyboardplayer was playing. Was it off? Nevertheless WHW played some strong songs with also the dreamy aspect which was properly transfered to the crowd. The voice of singer Rain Irving still remains a point of discussion. Where liking clean vocals is personal everybody has to say for himself if he likes it. I must say that the vocals on the albums are more bearable than in on stage but he sang pure and strong. Good show!

It seemed that the last band was the main attraction because the crowed went wild when frontman Alan got up on the stage.
Primordial just released their latest album “Redemption at the puritans hand”. So track from that album with the all time classics were expected. Right from the start people were headbanging and into the music and Primordial fed it by interacting with the crowd. A primordial show is always intense and never dull.

This tuesdaynight at Doornroosje in Nijmegen turned out to be a great night with an intense and awesome atmosphere.

Setlist Alcest:

Stelist WHW:
1. the Drowning years
2. Of Empire forlorn
3. Saturn and sacrifice
4. Vessel
5. Thus with a kiss I die
6. Voice in the wind

Setlist Primordial:
1. No grave deep enough
2. Gallows Hymn
3. As Rome burns
4. Lain with the wolf
5. Autums Ablaze
6. Blooded yet unbowed
7. the Coffin ships
8. Gods to the godless
9. Death of the Gods
10.Empire Falls

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