Event:	Reckoning Night Tour
Written by:	Account deleted
Published:	08.11.2004

I told everyone I would write a review reguarding the Sonata Artica show, so here goes!!

I'll begin with the opening act, a French power metal band called Inner Visions coming to promote their first album "Control The Past". You can have all the information about them here: Inner Visions




Just to summarize a bit there are two members of Rhapsody in this band the guitar player, and the bass player (from left to right):

- Julien Jacquemond: Vocalist of Inner Visions
- Patrice Guers: Bassist, also plays in Rhapsody, Rondat, and for some funny stuff he was the ancient bass player of Johny Halliday!
- Philippe Jaccoud: Keyboards
- Dominique Leurquin: Guitar, the other member of Rhapsody I talked about. Some of you must now him, he is not Turilli but he's talented indeed.
- Laurent Nafissi: Drums




I like the cover of the album, but concerning the music. Where to start? Well I had to download some of their stuff before the concert knowing that they still have not released an album, but I only got 30 second passages of some of their songs. I couldn't get into their music well enough so I really wanted to check out their live performance.

I did not enjoy the music that much. Not that they're not good we can't say that, but I dunno there was a lack of something maybe because they're just beginning to tour and do not have the flow we see with other bands in the metal scene. I don't want to judge them and I may appear a little harsh here. They played some songs of their "Control the Past" album and even did a cover of the Priest "Nightcrawler" which was not bad at all. Concerning their individual skills: Dominique Leurquin was the most talented for me because he plays as I could have expected he's not Rhapsody's live guitar player for nothing. He has some skills and he plays great solos. Speaking about talent Julien Jacquemond comes close to Dominique Leurquin cause he impressed me too during the show. I noticed nothing to special with the bass player, drummer, or keyboardist. I thought they were not bad but not amazingly good either. I'm looking forward to listening to the album and seeing if by listening to it a bit more deeply I will tend to like it or not, but the first impression was not good. I only remember the singer he got my attention and he sings well and he is very nice indeed. He played often with the crowd and made us participate to some songs so I liked him a lot. I'm therefore waiting to see if that band is going to make it in the metal scene or not. Let se what they're gonna do.

Well that was only an introduction and I can't write about Sonata In the same paragraph cause I think Sonata deserves a single review, so Inner Visions is something you should hear but do not expect anything incredibly technical it's simply metal thats really enjoyable by some people, and especially Rhapsody's fans cause they will find two members of the Italian band. Now it's up to you to listen and give your feedback.



After the Inner Visions show we had a 30 minute intermission between sets. Apparently they had some pre show problems with technicians having trouble connecting wires to the Tuner amplifier. We saw the consequences of that later on the concert.

Anyway, let me write the setlist by memory - which is not really great but well:

Here it goes:

-Intro: beginning of Reckoning Day, Reckoning Night
1- Misplaced
2- Blinded No More
3- Kingdom For A Heart
4- Broken
5- Last Drop Falls
6- Victoria's secret

-Short break just to give Tony kakko the time to change clothes hehe yeah because as they say in Their official WebSite: "On November 2nd we had a show in Paris, La Locomotive.
During the sound check everything was ok, and the day went by as usual, without any worries.
When the starting act played, the air ventilation system we did not know about was turned on, blowing REALLY chilled air on the middle of the stage." So tony Kakko needed some time to take and wear an extra-shirt, that he by the way took of like 20 minutes later!
7- Sing In Silence/The End Of This Chapter
8- 8Th Commandment
9- My Land
10- Black Sheep
11- Replica
12- Abandonned, Pleased, Brainwashed, Exploited

-Off the stage and got back:
13- Don't Say A Word
14- The Cage
15- Vodka Song (some funny thing about Portimo which I didn't really understand but that was fine... )

I don't really remember if it was in this order but they played all those songs. So first thing I should say is that I was really disappointed that they didn't play songs from the previous albums such as Full Moon, Wolf And Raven, and of the new album Wildfire which was on the German tour tracklist (concerning Wildfire). They seem to have played more songs or mostly classics when they were supporting Nightwish than when they were "alone".

Anyway the general impression was really good they played a great live set and the rumors about the fact that Kakko can't sing live are totally false. I remember having said that quite a long time ago. He sang with some difficulties on the two first albums tours "Ecliptica" and "Silence" Tour. Now he has made a lot of progress and gave us some great powerful vocals. He also could reach all his high tones and acute notes that he uses on the cds. Here in action singing "The Cage" flying like a bird!



We really enjoyed Jani's performance and we also liked that he was wearing his old Jack Daniels t-shirt. Seeing him was maybe the best thing out that concert as he always plays with the crowd smiling and doing funny things or making faces. He is the man to look at when you attend a Sonata Arctica show and of course because he also plays damm great solos. By the way he changed the shape of his two guitars or mainly his 6 strings model which he has had for a long time:




for that new one :




The new guitar was really beautiful because typical round guitars start to bother me a little and changes are always great for a guitar player.
His 7 string guitar may have stayed the same. I didn't pay attention cause he took that one only once and he had problems with the amplifiers that I mentioned earlier so he couldn't play Broken's solo which was a bit disappointing even if it's not his best solo. The whole concert he was with Tony the most important guy reguarding stage presence, and Tony played with the crowd well so you can guess that he really impressed me. He is a damn technical musician and plays almost all of his solos even the fastest solo without looking at his guitar but looking at the crowd as if he is trying to defeat Kakko who was doing tricks of his own. Tony is really great and deserves our respect. He was also the guy who moved through the stage to play just by the other guys like when he and Henrik have just same solos he came to faced him. Here's another picture just to see that the band's cohesion was mostly created by Jani.




For all the others guys it was as usual not exceptional but still enjoyable. The sound of Henrik Klingenberg's keyboard was fucken low so we didn't hear that much of it, but it might have depended on where you were in the crowd. The sound settings were not well produced and that's quite a pity because we didn't hear a lot of the vocals from all the other members. Basically we could mostly hear the drums, bass, and the guitar of course during solos but the keyboard sound was really set too low. Here are some photos of the rest of the band:



Well anyway all that to say it was a damm good concert. I haven't been listening to Sonata Artica that much these days but this concert made me think about listening to them more because it gave me such a good impression mostly of Kakko and Jani but all the guys were good. The ambience was great the Locomotive is always a damm good concert venue maybe even the best in Paris with "l'Elysee Montmartre" - so I went home really pleased and with a very beautiful Reckoning Night tour t-shirt. Even if the tracklist wasn't the one I expected the concert made my disappointment fade away and joy took place.

At the end they all said goodbye:



Well 3 hours of pure enjoyment I would say I recommend to all power metal fans to go and see Sonata Arctica live cause they're really great.

This was my first concert review hope you will like it

[Edited by MS Staff]