Venue: Dvorana Rikard Benčić /Rijeka / Croatia
Concert date: 25.04.2008
Attendance: 250
Ticket price: 70HRK (10,00€)
Blaze Bayley, the famous pick to fill Dickinson’s enormous shoes after Bruce walked out on Iron Maiden in 1993 over ego troubles, definitely holds a special spot on the map of metal. Since leaving Iron Maiden, the man has put out three studio albums, one live album and a live DVD, and the fourth proper studio album, “The Man Who Would Not Die”, is right around the corner, with the official release set for 07.07.2008.
Blaze recently had a fair bit of trouble with his bandmates refusing to fall in line on musical direction. So he scrapped the band entirely and rebuilt it from scratch. The revamped Blaze lineup that showed up in Rijeka was: Blaze Bayley (vocals), Nick Bermudez (guitar), Jay Walsh (guitar), Dave Bermudez (bass), Lawrence Paterson (drums).
Of course, I only heard about Blaze coming to Rijeka at the last minute. The organizer never got back to me, and this time I could have kicked myself, because the ticket prices were practically a giveaway. Not realizing it was actually a festival, Peter and I rolled up in front of the Rikard Benčić sports hall, where the show was announced, a bit before eight in the evening, after a long spell of driving around in circles looking for the place. Apart from the wild metal-and-beer carousing in front of and around the hall, this urban Rijeka neighborhood was a dead zone, with no sign of life whatsoever. There was honestly nowhere to go to liven up the day, nothing to make the wait for the first band any easier. Too bad the event wasn’t held closer to the city center.
GRIEF CHARISMA:
The event, called the “Riverburn” festival, as we learned from the announcement on Blaze Bayley’s official website, only got going well after ten at night. Sadly, the indestructible Croatian rock veterans Majke were forced to cancel at the last moment. The sparse crowd was warmed up by local heroes Grief Charisma. The quintet plays a more technically complex style. They take a basic thrash/death riff foundation, weave in more intricate passages and dose them out with switches into calm, atmospheric sections. The lead vocalist handles the death growls, while the bassist occasionally helps out with melodic, clean vocals. Slap “progressive” in front of “death metal” and that’s about enough to pin down the band. Put together, the music comes across as very fragmented. You can even find a parallel with Opeth, though light-years away, of course. The guys are still pretty green. What they mostly lack is gigs, especially the singer, who just couldn’t find his place in front of an empty pit and the long instrumental passages. At moments like that, it wouldn’t hurt him to pick up at least a rhythm guitar. The guys are enviably tight, but with no real dynamics or kinetic energy on stage. So, a fairly static and uninteresting set, even if technically well played. The energy flow and the charisma just weren’t there. The guys will grow into that too. Let’s give them time.
ACAID:
Up next were more locals. Rijeka natives Acaid. A band cut from a totally different cloth. A rock band that builds its rhythmic foundation on funk elements. Acaid brought a completely different energy to the stage, first and foremost thanks to their singer Ana, who grabbed all my attention in an instant, along with a few other interested souls down front. And why wouldn’t she? The girl has a hell of a voice. She has an incredible ear and feel for soulful improvised touches over the basic vocal lines. On top of that she’s got an authoritative, powerful voice, which she tops off with incredible energy and a dynamic stage presence. Maybe next time she could take care of the urge for extravagance some other way than raiding her mom’s Easter curtains, cutting them up and hastily wrapping herself in them for gigs with the band. The rest of the quartet sounded wonderfully well-oiled, mostly thanks to the layered, lively rhythm section that both guitars hooked into, at moments on clean semi-acoustic chords, with riff-heavy distorted avalanches following in the choruses. The singer’s mic, which died near the end of the set, was a sign that something wasn’t right with the sound. As for crowd participation, this just wasn’t Acaid’s day. Despite a seriously impressive performance, the audience hardly paid the band any mind, and didn’t give them any applause, which is shameful, but on the other hand understandable, since this time the festival drew a metal crowd hungry for metal. Ana, of course, turned it around with some cynicism and addressed the few people leaning on the barrier below the stage: “You’re our loudest audience so far!” Acaid have the rhythm side figured out. They built a brilliant “groove” that, combined with Ana’s easygoing, heartfelt and fiery approach, confirmed the band’s nice potential for growth.
BLAZE:
After a cheerful draw for winners of tickets to the Iron Maiden show in Split (11.08.2008), “Live After Death” DVDs and consolation posters, Blaze Bayley took the stage at 1:20 in the morning. The man ran out on stage the way we’ve come to expect from Blaze. The band was already happily scratching at our ears with the intro of Tenth Dimension, and the crowd, until then scattered and lost across the enormous hall, huddled together below the stage, practically all 200 to 250 people cheering the band on as one. When Blaze ran out to the front, the people of course lost it. Blaze established order in an instant. With a seasoned, authoritative performance and command of the band, he steered the crowd with his metal.
Blaze’s voice is still fully intact. His singing was highly convincing when it comes to power and explosiveness. A few times he was off, especially in the last pre-chorus of Born As A Stranger, when even the ever-obedient Dave Bermudez gave him a sideways look, and Blaze only pulled his almost half-step slip up to the right note in the chorus. Blaze is a superb talker, though. His tongue glides like it’s greased, he’s a first-class windbag, no question. He kept the crowd awake throughout with all kinds of speeches, mostly pouring his heart out about how only his fans matter to him and how he couldn’t care less about the music industry. Nice to hear, but we know what’s really true, don’t we?
It was a real pleasure to listen to the band, since Blaze built the setlist practically from his own original material, which the band played excellently. I had the honor of seeing Blaze (without Iron Maiden) live in April 2001 in Stuttgart opening for Helloween and in February 2002 opening for Savatage in Graz, both times with the best lineup, the one that also recorded the excellent debut “Silicon Messiah” (2000). But both times Blaze was limited to 30 minutes, and of course he played Iron Maiden in them too. This time there was plenty of room for his own material. Since it’s an excellent body of work, it absolutely deserves priority over the Iron Maiden material.
After numerous lineup changes and wrestling with the problem of a permanent drummer, this brand-new lineup proved during the Rijeka show that it can come fully up to the level of the first Blaze incarnation. Of course the two guitarists can’t quite match the phenomenal Slater/Wray chemistry, but they’re practically not even a stone’s throw away from it. Toxic voltage all the way through. The band pushed with all their might, and Blaze fired up the crowd like a true chieftain. No wonder he clicked with the Iron Maiden guys, with such a long tongue and a stage presence and gesturing so similar to Bruce Dickinson’s. Blaze is attractive and charismatic. In fact, when you watch him, it’s hard to take your eyes off him. He’s aremarkable performer.
Of the long-awaited Iron Maiden Blaze-era material, the band included just four songs. They confirmed that Blaze is the one true voice for performing them. His dark, lower-pitched voice is the sole creator of the real gloomy blackness that the one-of-a-kind “X Factor” (1995) album has, an unrepeatable Iron Maiden album in every respect. We reveled in the shaking beats of Lord Of The Flies, shivers shot unstoppably down the spine, there was the famous ultra-fast Futureal (“Virtual XI.”, 1998), and the treat of the night, Virus (“The Best Of The Beast”, 1996). The moment Blaze asked if anyone knew Iron Maiden’s “Best Of The Beast” album, it was clear what was coming. Virus was one of the highlights of this show.
Overall, Blaze cunningly lifted the mood during the set. The intensity grew through the songs, which you felt especially during Lord Of The Flies and all the songs after it until the end. The finish was solid, with the trio of Virus, Born As A Stranger and of course the obligatory Man On The Edge, after which the crowd simply couldn’t grasp that the party was over. Before Man On The Edge, Blaze announced that the band hadn’t prepared a classic encore and that they were actually going to play just one more song. This improvisation was down to the fact that the hall had no proper “hidden” and “secured” passage between backstage and the stage, and pulling the encore trick would have made a complete mockery of it, since the band simply had nowhere to retreat from the stage to the backstage this time.
Blaze Bayley and company also presented a song from the band’s upcoming new studio album “The Man Who Would Not Die” (2008). Blaze diligently introduced it to the people and warned everyone filming the song tonight and planning to upload it to YouTube to avoid cheap shots. They should do it this way: upload the song to YouTube only if the band really plays it well. Blaze didn’t forget to add that the crowd doesn’t know the song and won’t know whether the band played it well or not, so the band can allow itself to botch a bit in the middle of it. Pure theater and fun in the Bruce Dickinson manner.
An hour and forty minutes of excellent performance from the almost legendary former Iron Maiden singer, the reborn Blaze Bayley, with, let’s hope, a solid and stable lineup at last, one that will guarantee many more metal weddings like this and of course many new albums from the band, went by awfully fast. Let’s jump once more to the choice of Iron Maiden repertoire. Blaze would have surprised people, not to say shocked them, if he had swapped Futureal or Man On The Edge for Como Estais Amigos?. Or dropped both of those songs from the set and replaced them with Sign Of The Cross.
As for the sound, this time you had to stand dead center, either up front or anywhere between the stage and the mixing desk. But right in the middle, of course. To the left and right the sound drifted off badly, and Blaze’s vocals were especially hard to hear at those spots. The stage equipment was proof that the band is on a low budget, as they borrowed all of it from the organizer. All the bands played on the same drum kit…After the show the man took the time to sign CDs, which the crowd of course eagerly took advantage of. I wouldn’t have dared to dream in a million years that Blaze would ever play in Rijeka. Thanks to the organizer UPRK Soundlite for its faith in metal, its effort and dedication, and for accrediting RockLine right at the door before entering the hall. And even though not everything went at the festival the way the organizer perhaps wished, we got a taste of a genuine, noble metal pulse, created in Rijeka by the marathon Blaze. Just a pity there weren’t more people at the festival.
Setlist
GRIEF CHARISMA:
1. Of Powerty And Richness
2. Learn From Dead
3. Transparent Gas Mask
4. Lost
5. Fragile Faith
6. Agoraphobia
7. Toward’s Our End
8. Agony Remains
BLAZE:
1. Tenth Dimension
2. Ghost In The Machine
3. Ten Seconds
4. Speed Of Light
5. The Brave
6. Futureal
7. Stare At The Sun
8. The Launch
9. Lord Of The Flies
10. Regret
11. Leap Of Faith
12. Alive
13. Identity
14. The Man Who Would Not Die
15. Kill And Destroy
16. Virus
17. Born As A Stranger
18. Man On The Edge
Photo Gallery
