Mercoledì 24 Nov 2010, 7:40

Sat 2 Oct – Lacuna Coil, Slaves To Gravity

Please read this review on my blog:http://charliegigreviews.blogspot.com/ . If you can't be bothered clicking the link, I've copied and pasted it for you!

Lacuna Coil

It was a lovely brisk Saturday morning, the birds were chirping, the sun was shining and I couldn’t think of any better way to spend my time than standing still in a dark gloomy venue waiting for the most melancholic band on my ipod to appear. That’s right it was Lacuna Coil! Looking around at the crowd you could tell that they were a ‘happy’ bunch!
Anyway there were many people from different walks of life here. We had the true Goths who were obviously too ‘hardcore’ to move at all, the annoying scene kids who obviously had no idea of Lacuna Coil’s previous work and to be quite honest the rest of the people there were just creepy stalkers waiting
First up were the alternative rock band ‘Slaves to Gravity,’ who are a very popular band within England’s underground rock scene. And they delivered an impressive set; they weren’t the best support band I’ve seen but by no means were they the worst. They made a small impression on me, but they were a hell of a lot better than most mainstream rock bands featured in the holy scene kid bible known as Kerrang. I recommend listening to these guys if you’re a fan of ‘Three Days Grace.’ Altogether I’d give them a respectable 6.5/10

Now this was it, the lights dimmed and the crowd were getting exited! Soon the band ran out on stage and you could feel the drool from every member of the audience swimming around your ankles due to the goddess that is Cristina Scabbia. Unfortunately, this tour was promoting the bands newest album ‘Shallow Life’ so it was inevitable that they bombard us with these stale bland songs. If you’re unfamiliar with this album it can be best explained as the unwanted friend that just won’t go away no matter how deep into the woods you leave him.
Anyway, they opened the set with ‘Underdog,’ which had a great effect on the crowd, and they did a great job! Next up was ‘I’m Not Afraid’ which is one of the rare half decent tracks on ‘Shallow Life.’ What really surprised me were the vocals of ‘Andrea Ferro’ and how impressive they were. They weren’t as awful as they are on the studio albums. In fact they contrasted great against Cristina’s mesmerizing voice, despite it being impossible to decipher lyrics due to her diction (eg the lyrics from 1:19) they performed this greatly.
Next up were two tracks from ‘Karmacode’ these were: ‘Fragments of Faith’ and ‘What I See.’ These still continued in quality, however nothing outstanding to report. Then all of a sudden Cristina announced that they were going to be singing a song from their first album ‘In A Reverie’ which shocked the crowd more than an elephant on stilts would! Despite the crowd mainly consisting of Goth’s, the mild shock lead them to changing their blinking pattern slightly! Now they Performed ‘Honeymoon Suite’ which was rather entertaining to watch because of the melodramatic performance of Cristina and Andrea.
Now it was time for one of their biggest hits. It was time to look for higher ground with ‘Closer’, which definitely got the crowd jumping. ‘I won’t tell You’ was up next, which is probably the second biggest song from the new album, and was probably one of the best performances of the night.
Next they played ‘Halflife’ where I was impressed by the death vocals of Andrea. This was then followed by the classic ‘Heaven’s a Lie’ which was another great track, especially to those who have never really listened to Lacuna coil, thanks to the simple chorus. Now the cover of Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the Silence’ was probably the track of the night due the crowd’s enthusiasm, they went from depressed teens to slightly happier teens and started engaging in the physical act of MOVEMENT! The interaction with the audience was probably the best I’ve seen from any band yet. Cristina introduced this song saying this is her favourite part of the set…and I could see why! She ended up taking out her earplugs and let us sings the rest.
They then mellowed out with a stunning performance and the only ballad of the night ‘Cold Heritage’ from ‘Unleashed Memories’ which left Cristina singing solo with only both guitarists to play music. This was sang beautifully and really impressed me so much that I don’t want to make any smart arse comments about it.
The game was next on the list despite everyone’s frustration was…’THE GAME’ causing a systematic loss across the venue as well as a systematic loss of people’s happiness…or whatever the substitute was for the majority of the crowd. The last two songs played were one of my personal favourites ‘Swamped’ and the ‘Fragile’ which got the reaction they deserved!
The band then came back on stage for the encore where unfortunately they started off with ‘Survive’ from ‘Shallow life’ which I personally believe could have been substituted for a classic track like ‘Falling Again’, or ‘To Live is To Hide’ nevertheless still a great performance. Next track on the encore was ‘Spellbound’ which is slowly becoming the bands most popular track and its easy to understand why after the performance. Finally we were left with…Yes your guessed it! It was the one and only tracks ‘Our Truth’ from Karmacode! The track which got most of the fans into Lacuna Coil, and what a way to end a show! The crowd went insane and Lacuna Coil got the send-off they deserved!
Despite not paying much attention to Lacuna Coil they proved they are a force to be reckoned with! They also proved my previous assumption about the band riding to success on Cristina’s looks alone to be wrong. The only small factor letting them down was the selection of songs on the setlist.
7/10