Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
This event today at Z7 is certainly no April Fool´s joke. The guys of Kamelot are back! Almost right on the day a year ago they were here last and now they offer their fans a tour throughout Europe lasting almost a whole month. With them they have very different support acts like Leaves Eyes and Adagio, who are here tonight, but also All Ends and Amaranthe from Sweden. The last show of the tour, which will be in the hometown of singer Roy Khan, Oslo, will be accompanied by Triosphere who also hail from Norway but now let´s talk more about tonight´s gig.
Already with Adagio the venue is well-attended. The French band convinces with their elaborate guitar riffs and with a singer who, with his powerful voice, can almost compete with Mr. Khan. Founder of the band is the not entirely unknown Stepan Forté who also hits the strings with the band Red Circuit. Also singer Mats Levén is known through his collaborations with bands like Therion, Treat, Yngwie Malmsteen and many others. Mats easily captivates the a bit critical Kamelot fans and they celebrate the band with raging applause.
With their stories about strong men, battles and the desire for beautiful maidens, Leaves Eyes have stopped by the Z7 many times. For the first time the band plays with an almost entirely new crew – guitar, bass and drums were changed. On bass is now Alla Fedynitch, the German-Russian bassist also plays in bands like Eyes of Eden, Enemy of the Sun and has also played with Pain live. The newcomers seem to give new energy and power to the old members of the band. Liv chirps her soft melodies as usual and Alex gives variety and heaviness to the sound with his growls. Tonight, the band mostly plays songs of the new album “Njord”. Leaves Eyes will support Kamelot until April, 16th.
Kamelot have the pleasure of playing inside an almost sold-out venue. Already at the beginning the guys bring out one of their best anthems – Ghost Opera sounds through the speakers of the club and Elize and Jake from the Swedish band Amaranthe act as background vocalists. Singer Roy Khan seems to not only send female fans into raptures, there are actually also some men holding a piece of paper in their hands to tell their idol something. Khan doesn´t need to ask the crowd long to shout for him and scale up that decibel meter – it goes up to 119,9, which is the limit of the device. The band is happy and thanks the crowd with an extended encore. It´s obvious that the extreme echo, that is mixed to the vocals and the many pyro effects are part of the band´s live shows, however, I would expect a bit more from a trained opera singer. But the 1000 faces of Khan are more than worth to be seen and compared to last year, this time he hit the right notes. The fans were satisfied in any case.
