  Anathema - Hard Club 03-11-10
After three years of silence, Hard Club finally reopened its doors to alternative music, now with two venues, and installed in the old Ferreira Borges market. Since its opening the Hard Club hasn’t stopped bringing all kinds of concerts, I believe this will fill a gap experienced in the last years among the northern public.
The new location has good facilities and is very modern. In terms of room layout you could say it’s reminiscent of the old Hard Club which was located across the river, in the city of Gaia; however with several differences, the worst, perhaps is the air circulation system: of all the concerts I've ever seen, I think I never felt so much heat in a concert hall. It was almost unbearable; it seems that the ventilation system / air conditioning had broken.
Anyway, I was surprised by Hard Club’s punctuality, the opening band (Slamo) was scheduled for 21h00 and when we arrived at 21h35 they had already finished their set. The room was full and when Anathema went on stage you could feel the air of familiarity between the audience and the Cavanagh brothers. They started with a very classic repertoire: Deep, Pitiless and Forgotten Hopes were the first songs (the band was already batling in sweat and I believe the lights were no help at all). Female singer Lee Douglas entered on stage for A Natural Disaster, continuing with songs that can never be left out, such as Empty, Lost Control and Judgement.
The night wore on when Vincent surprised the public (with the exception of those who saw their setlist on the Internet!) when he said that they would play the new album "We're here because we're here" entirely accompanied by Lee Douglas on the first 5 songs.
In terms of sound, the venue was quite good, especially the voices, but it is regrettable that because of the unbearable heat that was felt, the public was unable to fully enjoy the concert.
The encore was comprised of 4 songs: Are You There?, One Last Goodbye, Shroud of False and Fragile Dreams and the band, amused by the audience reaction to their outro song danced their way out to the backstage.
Meanwhile Danny (thumbs up for the King Julien shirt) realized the climatic conditions and proceeded to distribute some bottles of water between the public and even so, Anathema made no comments or remarks about the heat situation and played with the same enthusiasm and passion as ever, for over 2 hours, even though they were literally dripping water.
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