Location: Szene / Vienna / Austria
Concert date: April 10, 2008
Attendance: 650
Ticket price: €26.00
The Rage show in originally announced Conegliano near Treviso on April 10, 2008 got moved to Florence, so we had to find a decent alternative, and that turned out to be catching Rage in Vienna, the second-closest option from Slovenia. Vienna? Getting there was no walk in the park this time, and we can thank the current state of the Styrian motorway for that. From Ljubljana to Šentilj it can now easily eat up a full two hours (conditions: rain, rush hour in Ljubljana, a lane squeeze for roadworks every 2 km and the traffic jams that come with them). Bravo DARS! My hat’s off. Flooring the gas pedal got us to the venue at 8:00 pm, but Rok and I were lost anyway, because RockLine walked into the Szene club totally green. Rage was our first show at this club. So we had to skip the Russian progressive metallers Freakozaks, which I honestly regret, since Russian musicians can be seriously interesting when they draw inspiration from the giants of classical music and pour it into a metal experience.
We did catch the very start of Edenbridge, Austria’s leading power metal act with a female vocalist front and center. It’s a quintet with two guitarists: besides permanent member Lanvall, guitarist Dominik Sebastian joined the band specially for this tour. The band is seasoned and tight, and in April 2008, in the middle of the tour with Rage, they’re putting out their new studio album, their sixth, “MyEarthDream”. The charismatic singer Sabine Edelsbacher charmed the crowd with her immersive stage presence, her angelic gothic female vocals and the authority with which she commanded the five-piece’s performance. In 45 minutes the quintet went all in on their upcoming studio album (due April 25, 2008) “MyEarthDream”, opening with it and closing on an epic high with the title track My Earth Dream. A blend of ultra-melodic hooks that burrow straight into your brain, power metal punch and bombast, carried on epic orchestral arrangements, had the crowd on its feet. The fact that Edenbridge got such thunderous support from the audience comes down to them playing in front of a home crowd this time. The band came out with real drive and were especially careful in their playing and delivery – you could feel they were at home, with excellent communication between Sabine and the audience. The orchestral arrangements and keyboards were of course sampled, and Edenbridge, as the opener, had a very solid and well-balanced sound. Three quarters of an hour of power metal pomp was heaven for fans of bands à la Nightwish, Elis or Epica. In the end the crowd demanded an encore, but there was no time for anything like that.
Rage hit the stage at exactly 10 pm. This past February the band released their new studio CD “Carved in Stone” (Nuclear Blast). It’s marked by the arrival of new drummer Andre Hilgers, who replaced Mike Terrana. The new album was the main reason for the tour, but what Rok and I were mostly curious about was how Andre Hilgers would fit into the Rage trio and fill the gap left by the departure of the one-of-a-kind drum master Mike Terrana.
Before I start rambling about the show itself, I have to mention that I was extremely pleasantly surprised when I stepped into the hall at the Szene club. About 600 young power metal fans were happily chattering away in there. Clearly Rage’s new alliance with Nuclear Blast, the growing relevance of heavy metal over the last three or four years, and the band (more precisely, guitarist Victor Smolski) taking management entirely into their own hands have paid off in boosting the Rage name. Five years ago Rage could only have dreamed of something like this. As recently as two years ago in Graz, Slovenian metal fans were practically rescuing the situation so the hall at the band’s gig at the Orpheum theater on April 9, 2006 (RockLine report HERE) wouldn’t be empty. This time you have to factor in that locals Edenbridge played before Rage, and they brought plenty of extra fans into the hall. That Rage approached things in a thoroughly professional way, and that the budget for their touring has grown, was confirmed by the lavishly stocked merch table, where you could pick from a heap of shirts and all sorts of fetish gadgets: lighters, patches, badges, stickers, CDs, and they even sold drumsticks, signed drumheads and even Victor’s picks.
Looking at the stage, the eye of course landed on the huge replica of a stone skull structure, the famous Rage mascot that the band has clung to on its album covers since “Perfect Man”, where this alien “caricature” first officially appeared in the band’s career. It wasn’t on stage on the “Speak of the Dead” tour.
Anyway, let’s finally get to the heart of the action. As expected, Rage attacked Szene with the new record, naturally with the songs Carved in Stone and Drop Dead! The band instantly got a seriously wild response from the audience, which proved right from the start that the album “Carved in Stone” has really caught on, since the guys and gals in the hall had the verses and especially the choruses down nicely. The band’s boss, singer and bassist Peavy Wagner, kept his recognizable sharp vocal, which stayed in great commanding form throughout the show. The seasoned musician led the crowd from song to song with practiced ease, kept eye contact the whole time, fired up the audience and, in the breaks, tossed in plenty of juicy jokes that kept everyone on their toes. The charismatic frontman of course didn’t forget to pull his trademark furious grimaces, which are part of the very essence of the band, and to flail his tongue around wildly, which was hilarious. A classic. At the same time the man is an exceptional link in the Hilgers-Smolski-Wagner chain, making sure the other two never veered off the course dictated by the hellishly wound-up program of Rage’s live performance. And once again it did its job without a single mistake.
As expected, the band diligently stuck to material from “Carved In Stone”, with as many as 6 of the 19 tracks on the setlist. Early in the show, though, Rage surprised with a song from the “End Of All Days” (1996) album, Under Control, which gave fans of the pre-Smolski era of Rage something to chew on. The trio again convinced in full that they’re a compact, well-oiled unit that knows no flubs or stage stiffness. Over two hours Rage built a hellish atmosphere whose fire simply could not be put out. The band walked masterfully through that fire as, after Under Control, the mighty Soundchaser (“Soundchaser“, 2003), Days Of December (“XIII”, 1998) and one more surprise gem, Refuge (“The Missing Link”, 1993), rang out. With the return to the current album and the song Lord Of The Flies, singer Jen Majura joined the band on stage, a beauty born to be a photo model. The duet with Peavy conjured a real “beauty and the beast” feel, not just in looks but also in the contrast between the singer’s angelic gothic vocals and Peavy’s famously “violent” delivery. Rage kept the lovely vocalist on stage for the song Dies Irae (“Unity“, 2002) too, which paid off big, since it stirred up the atmosphere and added a nice dose of stage theater.
Just how poorly the album “Welcome To The Other Side” (2001) is known among 18 to 22-year-olds was confirmed by One More Time. This otherwise excellent song, melodically flawless as a composition, got a seriously lukewarm response from the crowd in the hall, while on stage Rage were driven by the devil himself during its performance.
Unfortunately the band didn’t stray from the material written in the new millennium for the rest of the set, which is clear proof that Rage are extremely happy with this material and like playing it live best. In No Regrets, as part of the Suite Lingua Mortis (“Speak Of The Dead“, 2006), and especially in Unity (“Unitiy”, 2002), Rage proved they remain a well-oiled machine as far as tightness goes, even though it was precisely on these two numbers that it showed Rage lost some stage theatrics, wit and with them appeal when Mike Terrana left. With his damn speed and unbridled power, and at the same time incredible precision, explosiveness and inventiveness in building transitions, Terrana is without a doubt a better drummer than newcomer Hilgers. Luckily Rage aren’t Dream Theater, and with the metal predictability of the compositions in their own musical setup they can patch up such a loss more easily.
In his solo spot Victor Smolski only confirmed all his mastery, his musical multi-talent and his artistically expressive uniqueness, racing with incredible smoothness through a whole galaxy of sonically played notes. The man is intense and devilishly sharp in his riffing, and his breakneck playing, which Smolski pulls off with seemingly unbelievable ease, took my breath away.
The band went for an interesting finish to the show, closing with the song from the current album called Long Hard Road, into which they wedged snippets of the classics Don’t Fear The Winter (“Perfect Man”, 1988) and Higher Than The Sky (“End Of All Days”, 1996).
Rage came back for an encore and we again got to hear “Carved In Stone”, with the song Open My Grave, for which the band also shot a video. The show ended after two hours and fifty minutes with Straight To Hell (“Welcome To The Other Side”, 2001). A really odd pick for the encore, as well as for the end of the regular set, but the reason is obviously the push to promote the new album, the band’s enthusiasm for it, and a proud favoring of the newer, Smolski-era records.
Anyway, Rage remain in outstanding form. An hour and fifty minutes that flies by unbelievably fast as you watch the trio’s hugely dynamic performance, a trio that works incredibly perfectly only as a trio. Even though he’s the band’s only guitarist, Smolski covers the bulk of the sound, while Peavy and Andre Hilgers, who proved he’s earned his drum stool in Rage, skillfully create a hefty rhythmic gallop. The chemistry and magic of the band remain unblemished in 2008 too.
There is one thing, though, and it’s nothing new. With Smolski the band has changed a lot. It has matured in every way, especially as a songwriting unit. The new Rage are far more interesting for the listener than they were even ten years ago. Still, I think the stepmotherly attitude toward the material, from the “Ghosts” album all the way back to the debut “Reign Of Fear”, is unjustified, and that the classic Rage material deserves more live attention in the new millennium too. Seeing this excellent Rage show in Vienna will make for a nice comparison with their confirmed appearance at this year’s Metal Camp festival in Tolmin, Slovenia.
Setlist
EDENBRIDGE:
1.The Force Within (intro)
2.Shadowplay
3.Remember Me
4.Wild Chase
5.Shine
6.Evermore
7.The Undiscovered Land
8.Fallen From Grace
9.My Earth Dream
RAGE:
1.Carved In Stone
2.Drop Dead!
3.Under Control
4.Soundchaser
5.Days Of December
6.Refuge
7.Lord Of The Flies
8.Dies Irae
9.Beauty
10.One More Time
11.Lost In The Void
12.No Regrets
13.Guitar solo
14.Unity
15.Down
16.Set This World On Fire
17.Long Hard Road (incl. Higher Than The Sky & Don’t Fear The Winter)
—encore—
18.Open My Grave
19.Straight To Hell
Photo gallery
