Yup, less than 24 hours after coming back from London after seeing Rammstein we went back to see Lacuna Coil’s head-lining performance at the O2 Empire. See understandably we were a bit knackered for the performance. We have now decided that next time two bands we want to see are playing one night after the other we’re going to pick one or the other!

So how did it go? Read on…

Once again we were pretty lucky to get up front like last time. We didn’t get on the bar, which was a little bit of a disappointment but we still got a good view of the bands (enough to see what shoes they were wearing!). Unlike the night before there were two supporting bands, let’s go through them individually:

Dommin
The first band out, they were not too bad. They had one or two good songs but for the most part they come off as being a bit on the dull side. They did a cover version of Cutting Crew’s ‘(I Just) Died in Your Arms’ assuring the crowd everyone would know it. They were right in a way because no one in that place new the song until they got to the chorus… and I just had to Google the song to find which group performed it. It shows how cultured I am!

Dirty Little Rabbits
This is the band we really didn’t want to see, if you’ve read my previous entries you’ll already know how much I dislike these guys. Did seeing them in person change my view? Nope… they were dreadful. The only good thing about the performance was a guy in the crowd’s random shout outs of “LADY GAGA!”, “CHEESE ON TOAST!”, “CORONATION STREET!” and “PUT THE KETTLE ON!”. The singer was dreadful and it’s very hard to believe she was signed by a record company as competition for Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera back in the late 90s. And then there was the guitarist… oh… my… god. I don’t know what he’d set out to achieve with his stage presence but he gave me the impression that he just broken out of the special home. A big contrast considering the chap seemed pretty normal when setting up.

Lacuna Coil
Fooking awesome as usual, but I would say that because they’re the band I was there to see in the first place! This time they mixed up the set list a little playing tracks from Shallow Life, Karmacode, Comalies and Unleashed Memories. This was pretty good although I wish they would play stuff from their original album and the two EPs, this viewpoint is shared across the LC community but hey, you can’t please them all!

The band we really on their game and didn’t make any mistakes. Cristina gave a bit of a speech about “making it”, I don’t mind bands talking to the audience but I wasn’t sure whether to cheer or cringe in all honesty. I felt the same way during Corey Taylors little speech during Slipknot’s performance at last year’s Download festival.

The big downer on this performance was that their bassist Marco was at home nursing a shoulder injury. When the news came out about this, I didn’t know how much a difference this would make but the guy has a hell of a stage presence (check my photos from the last gig, he’s in most of them).

Anyway now onto random bits during the show, some good some bad:

• Just like last time when Lacuna Coil played Heaven’s a Lie there was a surge forward by the crowd. Like everyone wanted to be a bit closer to the band. This involved me getting knocked forward and getting very close to crushing the poor girls on the bar in front of us.

• A couple made out on my back. No, I didn’t get knocked over and they jumped on. The guy leaned his missus against my back while they went at it. I did knock them back a few times but it nothing to deter them.

• We didn’t get any picks or drumsticks, we came closs but Sarah nearly got knocked to the ground because a huge guy to my right took a dive right into me to get one of the drumsticks… and succeeded. A pick dropped on the floor near me, we looked for it, but the same guy with the drumstick got it. He then gave it to his girlfriend who was already wearing three picks from previous shows as a necklace. He then showed them off to us. Greedy cunts.

• A guy balanced his phone on Sarah’s head to get clearer photos. She was jumping during the next few songs to spite him. Good girl!

• See the pic below? This was my T-Shirt design and it was an awesome deterrent for leaflet guys at the doors. One guy was giving leaflets out for some party (or whatever) based on what you were wearing, he read the T-Shirt, didn’t like it and decided he didn’t want to give me one. Mission accomplished!

A few downers aside it was a good show. Sarah and I will keep going back until we get a drumstick or another pick. We’ve decided to be meaner next time, so biting people and stamping on hands trying to pick up OUR pick/drumstick is a possibility!