Location: Backstage / Munich / Germany
Date: 05.10.2011
Symphony X, the progressive metal standard-bearers from New Jersey (USA), put out a brilliant new studio album this year called “Iconoclast”. It keeps the magic of its predecessor “Paradise Lost” (2007) alive and even digs deeper into the riff aggression. We did catch Symphony X right here in Ljubljana this March, but sharing the bill with co-headliners Nevermore in the middle of the Cvetličarna MediaPark hall, their set somehow never hit its full potential. So we had to bite our tongues and hope the guys would head out on a tour of their own.
The hints turned into reality, and October was once again the lucky month. Four years have flown by since 20.10.2007 and RockLine’s first look at a Symphony X show in Vienna, and now we got another chance to soak up the undeniable, utterly unique concert magic of this band’s artistic spirit.
For the European leg of the tour, Symphony X invited Norwegian prog metal flag-bearers Pagan’s Mind, with their fresh album “Heavenly Ecstasy” (2011), as openers. Also along for the ride were the Italian prog metallers DGM, kicking again, whose latest studio album “Frame” came out in 2009.
The always pinpoint-precise Germans had everything ready, so the evening kicked off right on schedule! At a quarter past eight, DGM took the stage: Mark Basile (Mind’s Key) on vocals, guitarist Simone Mularoni, keyboardist Emanuele Casali, bassist Andrea Arcangeli and Fabio Costantino, the only original DGM member, on drums. In half an hour they played strictly material from “Frame” and got a great reception from a crowd that, up to that point, hadn’t been giving the stage its full attention. DGM are masters of their craft. Brilliant communication, especially the crossfire of proggy dialogue between keyboards and guitar, kept everyone hooked on what was happening up there. The excellent Mark Basile added his share too, his timbre leaning a touch toward Steve Walsh (Kansas) or Ted Leonard (Enchant). Let’s hope DGM hold on to this rediscovered chemistry and get a new studio album out soon, because even the maturely upgraded “Frame” alone deserves the attention of every lover of pure-blooded prog metal wizardry.
Pagan’s Mind were without a doubt a real little attraction ahead of Symphony X. They’re hard to catch on stage, since their shows mostly stick to northern Europe. But this evening they weren’t destined to play their set at its best. There’s another fact about Pagan’s Mind, though, that weighs even more on the state of mind in the band on this tour. Vocalist Nils K. Rue had to stay home right before the tour started because of urgent family obligations. The band turned to their countrymen Circus Maximus for help, which gave us an interesting situation. The excellent progressive metallers Circus Maximus, dormant for the fourth year running, lent Pagan’s Mind not just singer Michael Erriksen but also their drummer Truls Haugen on vocals. So Pagan’s Mind took the stage with two vocalists. And that’s where the trouble started. The techs just couldn’t sort out the microphone mess. For the Backstage club, with its long career and a crew that should be ready for anything, that’s a pretty outrageous blunder. Let’s just call it a “malfunction”. Pagan’s Mind needed a full 15 minutes to get all the necessary mics working. Truls and Michael shared one, and the other was meant for the backing vocals of guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad. The setlist was adapted and drastically trimmed. In the remaining half hour Pagan’s Mind played the brand-new “Heavenly Ecstasy” with three songs, delighted fans with two from the previous “God’s Equation” (2007), and spiced up the close with Thorugh Osiris Eyes from their second studio album “Celestial Entrance” (2002). Truls and Michael put on an excellent vocal show and genuinely had fun passing the mic back and forth while splitting the vocal duties mid-song. And one more thing: Truls is a great singer who’d have no trouble fronting one of the bands. Still, you could feel a real difference between the two singers every time the superb Michael Erriksen took the lead. Pagan’s Mind are far too experienced to be derailed by a 15-minute pause. In six songs and a half-hour set they got the whole of Backstage on its feet, and the crowd, which had huddled up to about 350 heads by the end of the night, was left thoroughly unsated as these Norwegian aces left the stage. Let’s hope another chance comes soon to see this band at its live best.
Most of the people, of course, came for Symphony X. We waited in front of the stage until 21:35. The stage goes dark, fog wraps around it, and silhouettes wind along the right-hand balcony passage and come down the stairs leading to the stage. The euphoria builds. Drummer Jason Rullo arrives first, but the front rows really light up when guitarist, first hero and crowd favorite Michael Romeo bounces onto the stage. A handful of fired-up Germans literally bow to him, arms stretched out in front, with deep bows. Those gestures got repeated several times through the show, so much so that singer Russell Allen, behind Romeo’s back, was already clowning around and mimicking the very same moves.
Finally, this is the Symphony X I came to Munich for! Backstage is among the acoustically weaker spots on the menu in the Bavarian capital, which can truly boast a rich choice of venues like this. You had to stand right by the mixing desk to somehow catch the balance of the instruments, and for sound perfectionists like Symphony X that’s of paramount importance. Russell Allen is a “vocal beast” and he’s in the form of his life. A brutalized version of Ronnie James Dio, who even borrows the “malocchio” devil-warding gesture every now and then, he stunned with a vocal performance that didn’t waver for a split second in the band’s hour and a half. Russell blew everyone away with power (Iconoclast), sophistication (When All Is Lost), or extreme aggression (Heretic, Electric Messiah). On the right-hand balcony, a focused handful of members of Pagan’s Mind, DGM and Circus Maximus watched the whole show. At one point Russell Allen turned to them, greeted them and tossed a water bottle toward his comrades up there. They shared a sip with him and sent the bottle back. Bottle passing through the club air between stage and balcony went on until Jorn Viggo Lofstadt accidentally hit the lighting rig above the stage with it. The bottle bounced into the middle of the hall and still found its way back to Russell on stage, because someone in the audience faithfully took care of it, carefully picking it up and carrying it over to Russell.
Symphony X are a storm of a band on stage. Their performance is breathtaking. Hellishly fast, flawless in everything, yet explosive when it’s called for and sophisticated, especially where the mini orchestral passages on Michael Pinnella’s keyboards come to the fore. Michael Romeo got real fanaticism from the front rows, who didn’t let him breathe for a second. Hands from the crowd kept reaching for the guitarist, freely touching his guitar and its neck. Romeo had handed out a dozen picks among the hot heads in the first half of the show, and soon figured that even that wouldn’t cool the boiling crowd. So in the second half, up to the break before the encore, he ducked a step or so back from the edge of the stage. Interestingly, the guitarist doesn’t let the constant chatter, calls and other thunderous shouts bother him at all, nor the theatrical bowing with outstretched arms from the crowd. If anything, he visibly enjoys the theater the audience puts on. You really couldn’t have expected such an intense response from the crowd, but apparently that’s already standard for Symphony X shows in Germany. Michael Romeo is clearly the undisputed guitar hero for German audiences.
The band played pretty much all of “Iconoclast”. Of the 12 songs on the album, they took on a full eight, tempting us with one after another. Only after the wild Heretic did they move on to the “Odyssey” classic Inferno (Unleash The Fire), while Of Sins And Shadows (from the album “Divine Wings Of Tragedy”) announced the end of the regular part of the show.
An encore of three songs from “Paradise Lost” brought an extraordinary climax back into the hall. The view over the crowd, completely glued to the band’s performance, was one of a kind, and Symphony X clearly enjoyed it. When coming back out for the encore, Russell Allen addressed the room, theatrically and with a big grin on his face: “What the fuck do you want from us!” The man, who by status is certainly among the real heavyweights of the new generation of rock and metal singers, is a natural talent. No hour of training diaphragm breathing, no hour of learning singing techniques! It’s incredible how well his voice serves him. Not for a moment did he show a crack of weakness. Russell enchanted everyone with his magic!
A band that spends most of the show, or really the whole show, with all the spotlights aimed at their backs is incredible in the polish of its individual players. They’re so “drilled” they could play it in their sleep, and that almost robotic tightness lets them perform relaxed, which they capitalize on with dynamic, constant communication with the crowd. Eye contact, plus nonstop handshakes with the people up front. And that’s what a listener comes to a show by their favorite band for, more than anything. At a quarter past eleven it was all over. Almost an hour and three quarters of hellish march that doesn’t let the listener breathe for even a second! With this show Symphony X served notice that they belong to the stage-performance elite of prog metal on the planet. The unique creative chemistry captured on the new studio album “Iconoclast” got fresh live confirmation. So it’s obvious the guys are at the peak of their powers!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
SYMPHONY X:
1. Iconoclast
2. End of Innocence
3. Dehumanized
4. Bastards of the Machine
5. Electric Messiah
6. When All is Lost
7. Children of a Faceless God
8. Heretic
9. Inferno (Unleash the Fire)
10. Of Sins and Shadows
—encore—
11. Eve of Seduction
12. Serpent’s Kiss
13. Set the World on Fire (The Lie of Lies)
PAGAN’S MIND:
1. Eyes Of Fire
2. Intermission
3. Walk Away In Silence
4. God’s Equation
5. United Alliance
6. Through Osiris’ Eyes
DGM:
1. Away
2. … In a Movie
3. Enhancement
4. No Looking Back
5. Not in Need
6. Hereafter
