Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: KSET, Zagreb, Croatia
Concert date: 07.05.2011
Attendance: 120
Ticket price: 120 KN/150 KN
Ever since they formed in 1982, Canadian progressive thrash metal outfit Voivod have been stirring things up with their daring musical experimentation and a sound all their own, one that goes hand in hand with the name Voivod and nobody else. More than any other thrash band, the Canadians drew inspiration from punk, Motörhead and the prog rock dinosaurs (ELP, Pink Floyd, Rush and others), who helped Voivod breathe a completely individual self into their music. That’s probably the biggest reason Voivod are a band for connoisseurs, one that has stayed more or less obscure, yet with legions of loyal fans. On top of that, apart from three years of rest after the premature death of guitarist Denis “Piggy” D’Amour (the one-of-a-kind guitarist died of colon cancer in 2005), the band hasn’t taken a break from the studio or the stage since day one. After Piggy’s death the surviving members put out the albums Katorz and Infini, with the last posthumous recordings of his guitar parts, and two years ago Voivod returned to the stage strong and reinforced with guitarist Dan “Chewy” Mongrain (Martyr). After almost ten years the Canadians finally came back to European halls with a short European tour, and one of the stops was Zagreb’s Močvara. Well, not everything went exactly to plan, and at the last minute the show was moved to the KSET hall (Club of Electrical Engineering Students) because of weaker ticket sales, but nothing could spoil the fact that Voivod had landed right on our doorstep! And the hall turned out to be an excellent spot for a gig of this kind.
Despite the gloomy forecasts about poor ticket sales, a hundred, a hundred and fifty fired-up Voivod fans gathered at KSET, and we were all impatiently eyeing the clock with sky-high expectations, waiting for the Canadians to finally hit the stage. That happened at a quarter to ten, and Voivod hurled us into a post-apocalyptic world with the mystically chilling intro from Carpenter’s horror classic The Thing, a world where the cybervampire Voivod sank its teeth into our necks and, like waves, the band’s music alternately nibbled gently at our throats and then brutally, mercilessly slurped up the blood. To start, Voivod caressed us with the Nothingface classic The Unknown Knows, and the band exploded no less powerfully than the crowd below the stage. The foursome used every centimeter of the stage, and the explosive, energetic Jean-Yves “Blacky” Thériault (bass) and Chewy repeatedly swung up onto the monitors and nearly leapt into the front row. The energy erupting out of Voivod is unbelievable and instantly contagious; the music and the hyperactivity of the members, who keep thrashing and sprinting around the stage the whole time, just suck you right in. But the real master of working the crowd is charismatic vocalist Denis “Snake” Bélanger, who had us truly eating out of his hand, and we laughed our hearts out at his unmistakable Voivod grimaces. With his band of ice warriors, Snake built a truly genuine connection with the crowd, something only a handful of bands can pull off, and they confirmed it again by warmly hanging out with fans after the show. It was wonderful and almost moving to watch Chewy’s fingers as he confidently, and with great respect for Piggy’s work, placed and fired off dissonant chords, solos from the “outer limits” and, to put it mildly, quirky yet brilliant chord play, which in Voivod’s case you can only fall in love with. The wild action on and below the stage really came alive and caught fire after the (sadly) only excursion to Angel Rat with The Prow, when Snake invited us into the bosom of old-school Voivod with the mosh anthem Ripping Headaches, which bit straight into the brainstem and shredded our brains; “The riff came full putch at my head! Do you like it?”; then came the “medicine”, though in the form of Ravenous Medicine it was more of a holy blessing; “Electric shock through you!” The surprise of Forlorn, from the album that is the only representative of the band’s era without Snake (alongside the record Negatron, which, like Phobos, was sung by Eric “E-Force” Forrest), woke Voivod itself from a coma with ominously heavy, almost sludge/doom guitar riffs and gave us a proper shaking via Away’s hands and feet. What Michel Langevin manages to wring out of a minimalist drum kit is incredible, since the double-kick torpedoing and wrecking-ball fills sound like at least three drummers are playing! With the higher volume and excellent sound, it all came across that much stronger! The newer, post-Piggy era of Voivod was represented this time by the song Global Warning, which, as the last testament of guitar great D’Amour, sits on the fittingly titled record Infini. Voivod, and Piggy with them, are immortal and infinite in their uniqueness! It’s all the nicer, then, to hear that the band won’t be saying goodbye anytime soon: the new track Kaleidos points to Voivod’s new path, and it was interesting above all from a guitar standpoint. I’m happy to write that Kaleidos, under Mongrain’s guitar baton, is a logical continuation of Piggy’s guitar “weirdness” (you can clearly hear that Chewy was a diligent student of his mentor Piggy), and the new material of the new Voivod era sounds extremely promising. Way too soon we found ourselves in the first encore, which Voivod spiced up with a pinch of nuclear fuel, and, bombastically and rawly, via the classics Voivod and Nuclear War, they led us to the most moving moment of the show – Snake’s dedication of the obligatory Pink Floyd cover Astronomy Domine to Piggy’s memory. Still, that wonderful, otherworldly well-played classic wasn’t the real end, because the band couldn’t resist the crowd’s roaring demands for more and spun us into the stormy Tornado to finish. It rarely happens that the guys play another song after closing with Pink Floyd, but the Croatian crowd (with a few Slovenians mixed in) truly earned it this time.
With the Zagreb show, Voivod proved they’re still strong and that their energy, creative energy included, as Kaleidos nicely shows, won’t be burning out anytime soon. After Piggy’s death Voivod are moving into a new phase of their creativity, but whichever phase the band goes through, Piggy’s spirit will live forever, and with it thrash outside every mold, progressive in the true sense of the word and a brave refusal to bow to established musical guidelines. Voivod Lives!
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. The Unknown Knows 2. The Prow 3. Ripping Headaches 4. Ravenous Medicine 5. Forlorn 6. Tribal Convictions 7. Global Warning 8. Experiment 9. Nothingface 10. Missing Sequences 11. Kaleidos 12. Overrection – encore 1 – 13. Voivod 14. Nuclear War 15. Astronomy Domine – encore 2 – 16. Tornado
Photo Gallery
