Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Kino Šiška / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: September 27, 2011
Attendance: 800
Ticket price: €25.00
At the end of September 2011, on their tour around Europe, Swedish champions of melodic brutality In Flames and Slovenia’s Noctiferia stopped in white (well, more like green…) Ljubljana. An old friendship between two bands and a joint European tour!
The size of the crowd waiting for the show outside the former Kino Šiška promised a party, but a closer look revealed that too many of those waiting, at the tail end of one of this year’s last September days, had wool beanies on their heads, and most of the crowd was dressed in In Flames shirts whose prints proved that their owners know the band mainly thanks to MTV. That means In Flames are one of those bands that are no longer wet behind the ears and that, through a gradual musical transition of their style, managed to cash in on a generational shift, successfully bringing their new sound closer to teenagers. The question is how familiar this crowd is with the band’s output before the album “Reroute To Remain” (2002), but why dwell on the past, even if it’s a kind of pioneering work from the first In Flames era.
So, let’s get going. Noctiferia, who have been getting nice praise from many media outlets especially for their latest record “Death Culture” and who are very active live abroad too (a Slovenian metal band that can truly brag about that), played a nice cross-section of their musical journey, while trying to bring the brutality of their early songs as close as possible to the teenage crowd. The guys pulled that off in an instant, because the crowd was properly “tearing it up”. These guys are (as proven many times before) outstanding musicians, and over the years of defiance they’ve also picked up a coherent, hugely confident and polished stage presence. Vocals on point, everything on point. Great sound, great show! After a performance like this, Noctiferia undoubtedly deserve another tour or two like it, since their professional attitude to the work and their approach to music reach Western European standards. If anything stood out a tiny bit during the show, it was the lead singer’s obsession (or fascination) with Sepultura’s trademarks. The sound, then, was (for a support act) at more than a satisfying level, the lighting was aggressive and the crowd was into it. What more could Noctiferia even ask for when they find themselves at such a peak on home turf?
On the new tour, which brought In Flames back to Ljubljana after their March show in 2009, this time to promote the freshly released album “Sound Of Playground Fading”, the band is playing its first run in its career without founding member and guitarist Jesper Stromblad, if we don’t count his periodic absences during treatment for alcohol addiction.
In Flames are by now an almost legendary Swedish band, regarded as a musical innovator! Back in their nineties heyday they wove into their songs things that still give every lover of real metal goosebumps. But over time the guys developed a taste for popularizing their music, so with the push into the American market they changed their style a lot, essentially bringing it to a level that crosses sweet alt-pop structures with dizzying “break rhythmic framework” in the riffing, though of course they kept the extreme vocals (growling). Spices of melodic twin harmonies in thirds still remind us here and there that the lineup originally belongs to the Gothenburg school of death metal.
With Niklas Engelin as the new permanent guitarist, who has filled in as a temporary replacement for Jesper Stromblad no fewer than four times since In Flames began, the band confidently led the Ljubljana show from start to finish! The setlist, made up of newer material released on albums over the last ten years, was totally what you’d expect. The new In Flames still build on atmosphere. The massive sound mostly creates that thick, heavily produced wall of sound they have on stage, and Anders Frieden keeps up his extreme singing, which does sound a bit worn over the years, but is perfectly fitting for the expressive range of the new songs.
We can say that with this show In Flames came to Ljubljana to wash away the stain left by their completely botched performance on 27.03.2009 at the Gospodarsko razstavišče exhibition hall. Back then you literally couldn’t hear a thing on stage. This time the atmosphere was totally different. With this show In Flames justified the reputation and status they enjoy with their sweet version of extreme metal that “barks but doesn’t bite”. As regulars at big festivals in recent years, in the company of modern alternative rock and metal bands (from Volbeat, Bullet For My Valentine, Alter Bridge, Anti Flag, Raise Against etc…), they’ve cemented their name and boosted their popularity among the youngest music consumers.
The wild crowd was a guarantee of great energy and a real peak in Šiška. The sound was surprisingly good by the standards of metal gigs at Kino Šiška. From the predator All For Me off the new record, which showed just how well the crowd already knows the latest studio release too, the people were seized by a special kind of obsession! During Only For The Weak the whole hall was literally jumping to the rhythmic march and fiery riffing of the band. From the front row all the way to the entrance at the back, behind the mixing desk. You don’t get to see that every day at gigs in Slovenia! The view alone gave you goosebumps. At moments it felt like the crowd had done the whole thing by itself. The band was literally carried on its wings. All the way to Take This Life, when the crowd was showing visible signs of being fried, since this time In Flames left the true impression of a band that sets ablaze every venue it lands in. But even at this closing point of the show Anders instantly woke the crowd up when he yelled: Slovenia! Are You There For Me?!?!?” No exceptions! Relentless to the end! The old The Hive (“Whoracle”, 1997) and Colony (“Colony”, 1999) naturally work completely differently in the new era, in harmony with the new face of In Flames. The twin harmonies in thirds, as demanded by yet another older surprise of the show, Insipid 2000 (“Colony”, 1999), sounded perfectly audible. In short! In Flames delivered an unforgettable get-together and delighted a packed Kino Šiška, whose walls this time cracked wide open at the seams and swayed under the band’s unstoppable alt-metal volleys!
It’s an interesting realization that the crowd that came to the In Flames show and filled Kino Šiška to the last corner is surely not one we’ll see at, say, shows by Exhumed, Cynic, Pegazus etc… coming up soon in Ljubljana. So In Flames passed through Ljubljana with flying colors!
photos: Nina Grad
text edited by: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
IN FLAMES: 1. Sounds of a Playground Fading 2. Deliver Us 3. All for Me 4. Trigger 5. Alias 6. Colony 7. Swim 8. The Hive 9. The Quiet Place 10. Where the Dead Ships Dwell 11. Fear Is the Weakness 12. Come Clarity 13. Insipid 2000 14. Only for the Weak 15. Delight and Angers 16. Cloud Connected 17. The Mirror’s Truth 18. Take This Life NOCTIFERIA: 1. Terror 2. Slavedriver 3. Deluders And Followers 4. So Devoid 5. Bring Out the Beast 6. Demoncracy 7. Monarch 8. Catarsis 9. Samsara 10. Holymen
Photo gallery
