  
Smash into pieces opened the night. A Swedish band, they announced that this was their first ever UK gig. it was fairly cramped on stage as they were set up in front of the Amaranthe set, but despite this the band members constantly move around the stage and make the most of the available space. They're not a band I'd come across before but they sound great tonight and definitely impressed me. They go down well with the crowd too, and do a great job of getting the night off to a good start.
Deals Death came next. A Swedish Melodic Death Metal band they're the heaviest band on the bill tonight, and are very different to Amaranthe, yet they go down extremely well with the Amaranthe fans. I think it shows that Amaranthe's very diverse sound attracts fans who are quite open minded musically.
The band put in a great performance - I really enjoyed their set and will certainly be looking forward to seeing them again in the future. On stage they move around as much as the cramped stage allows and headbang like crazy with long hair flying everywhere. A great set from a band well worth listening to.
You have to admire the dedication of Amaranthe (and their support bands). Tonight's gig was moved forward a week to avoid clashing with the rescheduled Within Temptation London date, but this means that Amaranthe's London show falls between two German tour dates, so after playing Berlin, they've had to drive three bands plus all their gear straight to the UK to play London before heading straight back to play in Ludwigsburg - that's a hell of a round trip. It was clerly worthwhile though as the venue was busy - probably around 700 people there, whereas if they'd clashed with Within Temptation then attendance would almost certainly have been lower.
The show started with some blinding strobes as the band kicked off with "Future on hold", and that kicked off 90 minutes of fantastic music. If you've never listened to Amaranthe their music is quite hard to describe as it belnds death metal, rock, metal and pop together into something that's insanely catchy yet is still heavy at the same time. To make themselves even more unique, they have three types of vocals - clean female vocals, clean male vocals, and male growls, so as well as the contrasts between male growls and clean female vocals, you also get some great vocal harmonies with the male and female clean vocals.
Tonight's set was great all the way through, but for me the highlight was the superb version of "Amaranthine". When they came out for the encore instead of going straight into one of their songs, they actually kicked off with the guitar riff from Pantera's "Walk", which went down well before they moved into "Invincible" and then finally ended the night with "The Nexus". An absolutely superb performance from Amaranthe
Amaranthe setlist:
Future on hold
1,000,000 lightyears
Leave everything behind
Infinity
Automatic
Razorblade
Theory of everything
Drum solo
Burn with me
Afterlife
Mechanical illusion
Hunger
Electroheart
Amaranthine
Call out my name
Encore:
Invincible
The Nexus |
