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!

I’ve been meaning to write about this for about a week now but I’ve just been very lazy! Anyway, onwards!

Rammstein’s support Combichrist started off proceedings at around 8pm, they showed a bit of promise in the first song as the singer marched up and down stage while two drummers laid down the fast-paced beat in the background. They seemed okay until we realised all of their songs basically merged into one with very little variation involved. One of the drummers kept throwing his sticks away at every opportunity and eventually trashed his kit. They also played a song called ‘Fuck that Shit’… indeed.

Shortly after clearing up that mess a ramp was rolled on stage in front of the black backdrop and the lights went down. The familiar opening of the song ‘Rammlied’ began to play, the audience started to get excited. The two guitarists Richard Kruspe and Paul Landers simultaneously started smashing through the backdrop shortly before singer Till Linderman took a blowtorch to the blackness and proceeded to cut his way through. After a few seconds of encouraging the crowd the backdrop pulled up and they started. No talking or anything. This set the pace for the rest of the show as the fireworks started marked the true start of the song. The band also didn’t say anything to us until right at the end!

Over the course of the show we were treated to a number of Rammstein classics from each of their previous albums (yes, even Rosenrot) however it seemed to be lacking on the Reise, Reise front. The show overall naturally leaned towards the new album with the rest of majority of the tracks came from Mutter and Sehnsucht.

The show was pretty eventful, not only were we treated to excellent firework displays but there was also head-mounted flamethrowers (worn by the singer and both guitarists), hanging dolls with lasers for eyes, which blew up at the climax of the song, the Pussy Cannon (spraying cum foam over the front of the audience). There was also this guy that was set on fire with a flame thrower on stage, at the time we weren’t 100% sure if that was part of the show as he ran back and forth on fire before falling down and getting dragged off by security (or were they roadies?)

Other key parts of the performance were where Flake got beaten up by Till during Ich Tu Dir Weh. He was then shoved into the bathtub before Till ascended on a platform and then proceeded to pour explosive liquid into the said bathtub. Flake eventually re-emerged from the bathtub in a sparkling suit, he slowly made his way across the stage doing this weird little dance before jumping back up to his keyboard and continued to walk. Seriously, the guy must’ve walked miles, he was on a treadmill for most of the night – must be how he keeps so slim!

Naturally when the show came to an end we wanted more, after three minutes our wish was granted as Rammstein came back out and performed two encores. The first started off with my favourite Rammstein song of all time – Sonne! This was then followed up by Halfisch, in which during the climax Flake was put into a rubber dingy and crowd surfed in it. During this time he pulled out a Union Jack flag and presented it. Flake rules! After this song ended the lights went down and Rammstein left the stage again.

After another short break they came back on stage again to perform their classic ‘Engel’. For this song Till donned huge wings, which eventually opened and let rip some flames every now and then. It was a hell of a display for the end of the show.

Back in September/October we found ourselves a little surprised at the admission fee of £45. We felt it was a bit steep in comparison to other bands we’d previously seen, but we’d pay it anyway as Rammstein don’t play around here very often. Was it worth the admission fee? Oh definitely! We plan on seeing them again next time they’re in these parts. We probably won’t see them when they come back to play Sonisphere as we believe their show may be neutered somewhat, but after the next album release? Hell yes!

As I’ve yet to explain fully the Rammstein show was friggin’ awesome and had a number of memorable parts! One of which is shown during the video above. When performing their song Pussy (it’s about sex, go figure!) there’s a point where Till mounts a cannon, which looks like a penis. He then proceeds to ride it along the stage while it shoots foam everywhere (guess what that’s meant to signify!) spraying the front of the crowd.

Check out this video as this guy was within range of the foam!

*Yes, we’d originally planned on staying the night but it turned into a pain in the ass to find a nice hotel.

In the meantime here’s some of my favourite pics from what I took. Pretty good going considering how difficult it was to get a good shot due to the light displays, pyrotechnics, tremors in my hands and especially how far back we were!

maki_pic_01

This little chap’s smile matched Sarah’s victory grin on that night!

maki_pic_02

On to the performance, it must be noted that Dirty Little Rabbits cancelled this performance and their appearance at Sonisphere in order to finish the debut album. Thank God! I checked some of their videos on Youtube in the run up to the gig, and it didn’t look good! The Defiled and Cancer Bats filled the void.

The Defiled
Not a bad performance yet not a good one either, but had enough promise for me to check out their stuff the following day. They were quite amusing really, the band consisted of:

- A bassist that kept climbing up stuff.
- A mask-wearing guitarist, was he worried about the Swine Flu pandemic?
- The keyboard player that just didn’t know what to do with the keyboard. Was he going to throw it into the audience? Was he going to put it down? Did he actually play it in the end?

Not quite sure how well they came off to the audience, but from what we could see around us they weren’t very popular. Someone loudly exclaimed “I don’t think anyone knows who these guys are!”. To be fair their name wasn’t even hanging from the curtain behind them.

Oh, and let’s not forget the failed attempt at getting the audience to form a moshpit.

The Defiled

Dead By April
In my opinion these guys were the strongest support act by far. Their material was a lot more melodic and seemed to comprise of a nice fusion of both metal and pop.

I thought I’d post a particular image above of the group. Namely a pic featuring the “the fit one” (bassist) as Sarah so nicely puts it!

Dead By April

Cancer Bats
These guys were so… so… incredibly bad! (IMO – don’t kill me! ) And because they were so bad their set just seemed to drag on, and on, and on… in fact I believe they had the longest set of the three to my disappointment.

It was one of those performances where you really dread being up the front. I just wished I packed an umbrella because you just would not believe how much spit and sweat came raining down from these guys!

Cancer Bats

Lacuna Coil
What can I say? They were the band we were going for and their performance was fantastic! The set consisted of songs from Shallow Life, Karmacode and Comalies and went on for just over an hour. The only downside is I wish they’d mix it up a little and play some of their older material, majority of their set were songs played at Download the month before. Aside from this I could not fault them.

Particular members of the crowd on the otherhand… The set went on for a good half an hour before there was a load of forced pushing in and then we found ourselves on the edge of a moshpit (not through choice) and I must’ve been elbowed gawd knows how many times, I just found myself occupied in the end with pushing all of these guys back into their little moshpit while shielding Sarah and the girl next to us.

Oh, and Sarah managed to get one of Maki’s picks. Awesome times!

Lacuna Coil