Event:	Opeth, Burst - UK 2005
Written by:
Published:	26.05.2006

29.11.2005 Leeds, Black Canvas
20.11.2005 London, The Forum (+ Akercoke)
02.12.2005 Exeter, Lemon Grove
03.12.2005 Oxford, Brookes Student Union

What a week! Four gigs over 5 days. Some 2000 km with an Opeth sticker on the back of a car. Blagged After Party passes in London. Got hit on my head with an army boot by a crowd-diving fan in Oxford. Was stuck in Exeter overnight with no money and no phone. Got to share a bed with a lesbian druggie in Leeds. Loads of beer, fun and great music all in all.

Having released their latest Ghost Reveries album under a new record label RoadRunner, Opeth have been on the road for a while before hitting the UK. Again. The band has been welcomed here from their first appearances here back in the early 90's to recording Lamentations at London's Shepherds Bush Empire to playing with Extol earlier the same year.

This time the setlists for all UK shows were nearly identical, with variation of Demon of the Fall and A Fair Judgement, the latter being played live again after Lamentations. The band started off with GOP's title track, followed by When and my personal favourite - White Cluster. Closure, the only mellow piece (apart from A Fair Judgement), smoothly flowed into Bleak - a trick Opeth's used before. The band surprised everyone by playing Under the Weeping Moon from their first album. Ironically, this one went after The Great Conjuration, a song that caused a lot of debate among the old fans after a radio edit and a horrible video.

Mike wore a KISS t-shirt to one of the gigs in his ever-ironical way, made jokes and communicated to the audience a lot. So according to him, a drummer replacing Mr Martin Lopez (out of the band now due to health problems), Martin Axenrot of Bloodbath (thus, a link with Mike) was only in because of his name. So that the rest of the members won't get confused.

"Axe" also played with a broken cymbal through out the whole British tour. Otherwise, he was doing all right. In Oxford Mike refused to play encore until the audience answered his very own Judas Priest Quiz, which someone did! Mike's jokes on Opeth being a cock-rock band got all the new meaning in London, where the band was supported with local errr? extreme and heavily Satanic death metal band Akercocke. "God's Penis." "British Satanic Noise Devils." Dressed in black suits: "a perfect dress for the gentlemen attending a ritual chamber or perhaps a funeral"? Hopeless.

Anyway, most of the audience was there not to hear them. And not to see the madman of a keyboardist, who must have been overtaken by Satan during their performance or something.

The other band supporting Opeth on this tour was Burst (Sweden). Quite an innovative band, at least in the way they look like a typical British alternative rock/indie band in trainers and polo-necks and play quite coherent and heavy stuff. They've also got a silly orange drumkit.