When I arrived to the venue, a first local band was playing its last song. Unfortunately it was too short for me to have an opinion about it but the few that I heard weren't so bad? After some minutes came the time of Eric Forrest (ex Voivod) and his two band mates to play some few covers and original songs of E-Force. It was extremely short but it was cool to see Eric on the big stage of the Havana Café and even if they didn't play a lot of songs (5 as I remember) it was cool to finish on a cool cover of Motörhead.
Kiuas was the third band of the evening and in my opinion it was the good surprise of the night. First the singer talked to us with a really good French and it was highly appreciated by audience but above all they were really friendly and their music was catchy! Ok it was not the most innovative Metal that we ever seen but it was cool and their mix of Power with Folk Metal was enjoyable. Honestly this is a band that I would like to see again and I hope that you'll have the chance to see them a bit longer the next time.
Dyslesia came on stage and the French dudes tried to do a good show but it was not so easy after the good performance of Kiuas. It was weird for me actually because I like this band on CD but there it was just common and not really good finally. I won't say too that it was terrible but it was a bit cold and not so fun. Plus the songs seemed to be generic, basic and not really effective. I don't know if Dyslesia was not in a good day but I didn't enjoy their performance and I was disappointed in the end. Too bad I'm sure that the band was able to be better and I hope that they will be able to convince me a bit more in the future.
As you already know, Firewind was the headliner of the night. Honestly I think that the band did a good performance and that's right, they were at the top technically speaking. Their singer was one more time extremely good and the two guitarists were impressive as always. The problem here was that I didn't feel any real coherence between the members of the band. It looked a bit like if all the members just tried to show that they were good without having fun? Plus in my opinion Firewind seems to be too fast in its progression. I mean that ok, they're famous in Greece but they don't have yet the status and the charisma of a real headliner and in a country like France it was extremely hard to convince people. We were not a lot this night and despite the good show of the combo the crowd didn't move a lot. They played their best songs but not a lot of people seemed to know them perfectly and we didn't have any real great reception despite maybe during the really cool cover of Flashdance mega hit "Maniac". Don't misunderstand me, Firewind was good in Toulouse and this band has a strong potential but they still need to tour with bigger bands to become a bit more famous in my opinion
I had good night nonetheless and for sure Firewind is an impressive live with great musicians but I regret a certain lack of alchemy during the whole night. It was pro and everything but it was not the funniest show of the year for me. Well I will keep an eye on all this bands and come to see them again in the future to see their progression because I'm sure that they will be able to surprise me a bit more. Let's see then after all they were all honest and showed that they are able to do great things.
Thx again to Mr Julien and K Productions for the accreditation.