28 April. Upstate Concert Hall, Albany, New York
After another night drive we arrived in Albany, New York for the triple bill with Opeth and Katatonia. I rolled out of the tour bus and into the venue and bumped into Opeth's leader, guitarist and frontman Mikael Akerfeldt. We had not met before but we knew who each other were. Mikael immediately said how much he loves Stevens album 'the Raven that refused to sing', and we both said how much we were looking forward to hearing each other's band live. Seems like a nice guy.
After much hanging around, we sound checked at about 4pm. We ran the usual couple of songs to check everything was working and for Ian, our front of house sound engineer to fine tune the sound. We take our own mixing desk and cables and microphones on the road with us, but not stage monitors (for those who do not use in ear monitors) or PA system. So everything needs checking but Ian and the crew are extremely good and it is all done quickly and efficiently.
One thing I have been enjoying recently onstage is the small spinning conch shaped gong that Marco bought in Amsterdam off my friend Steve Hubback which he has incorporated into his drum kit. It has a beautiful and enchanting sound and when it is struck it spins around as does the sound it makes. Marco usually strikes it at certain particular points in the show like at the end of the song 'Index' and the sound always shines through. It always makes me smile.
The first band on was Katatonia who are a Swedish metal band. I only heard a bit of their set which sounded OK but not particularly for me. We then went onstage at 8 pm. The crowd was packed into the space and there were a lot of people there. With a low ceiling and a packed club you might expect it to be very hot and sweaty onstage, but the air conditioning was so powerful I was actually cold onstage as gusts of Arctic-like wind blew down on my head. It felt rather strange. Our set was shorter than normal because of the triple bill, so we had to lose a few songs. It all went well though and we got a great response.
After a quick changeover, Opeth came onstage. I have not head their music
before, but have been aware of them for years as Steven has produced some of their albums, is a good friend of Mikael and also collaborated with him on the 'Storm Corrosion' project. Their set was very varied and included some very heavy songs with what is called 'death growl' vocals, which sounds to you and me like the Cookie Monster from the Muppets.
Actually I have never experienced this live before and it was not as silly sounding as I expected. Some heavy metal has high pitched screaming and that can sound even more ridiculous. The death growling was only on the heaviest of songs and it does kind of work with the music. The
following day I even checked out the 'How to death growl' videos on Youtube out of curiosity. Looks like you make a sort of clearing your throat sound, and then speak or sing as low as possible and loud. Hmm...Then there was a track called 'Atonement' which was introduced as their psychedelic song and I thought it did have a '60s psychedelia vibe to it. Then some strong acoustic guitar songs which were still dark and ominous sounding and also a beautiful song from their recent Heritage album. So a huge range and because of that, everything made everything else sound more dramatic and interesting. There was also space in the music and everything was very well played. I saw just about the whole set
and was impressed and enjoyed it.
A friend of Steven's who was hanging out backstage said she was from New Jersey and when I said I had spent some time there and has been to Point Pleasant Beach she told me of the devastation there and along the coast at Seaside Heights from Hurricane Sandy. I remember that beach well and was shocked to see some photos of the destruction caused.
I had an early- ish night and awoke in Pittsburgh in the rain where we are having a day off in a hotel. Yeah! Random piece of band information for the day...most quoted film this week - 'Withnail and I'.
Theo Travis