back from Therion, salle de la cité, Rennes
First, I have to say that I didn’t know both bands beforehand, but waiting in line to enter the place, there was no doubt this would be a metal show, given the number of people wearing black and leather.
There should have been 2 bands opening for Therion, but since some time ago, only The Vision Bleak was left. I don’t have much to say, They came on stage at 20:30, this was probably one of the few first-part bands that brought a good reaction from the public, and I would classify them as forgettable metal, but that’s just because this is not the kind that I listen to often and it felt a bit bland to me. I just wished they had played faster, but maybe this is the genre which is asking for this kind of rhythm. Oh, and their setlist was short! They only played for half an hour. I mean, if there had been another first part band, that would have been somewhat ok, each band must be given some time, but with so little time, I felt a bit sorry for them.
Then came Therion, with an impressive stage setup: large backdrop, pipe organ (were the pipes real?) and candles. And when the show started, it was still more impressive: chained women with animals head and flags on both ends of the stage, and monk roadies. Two Guitars (Gibson for the band leader, nice Ibanez 540 P2 for the lead player also sporting a nice beard), bass, drum (unimpressive kit, but that is not the point), keyboard/organ (and funny guy) and 3 singers (yes, you read well, three, even four on latter songs). Sound-wise, this was a good show, opera-metal all the way. During the first part, they also played a 5 guitars acoustic piece (Lemuria?). To introduce a song, we even were given an organ solo where this guy played a bit of… La Marseillaise. This was, well, weird. It was first booed a bit, but soon people were singing a full blown Marseillaise with the pipe organ at a metal concert (what the?!). Impressive.
So, after 90 mins, no they didn’t stop, they only took a break. And after that, they came back to play a whole album (whichever it was, I don’t know them, don’t ask me!) in its entirety! Well done. A few more songs, an Abba cover (ah, those swedish people…) and it was over, only to finish with the crowd, in good spirit, singing Happy birthday to the band, since this is a 20th anniversary tour. This was a 2:30 set, which was a good compensation for the short setlist of the first band.