ELUVEITIE / LACUNA COIL / INFECTED RAIN at Vulkan Arena (Oslo, Norway)
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
by Jorge Patacas
When Eluveitie, Lacuna Coil and Infected Rain announced they were going to tour together to promote their respective new albums, fans got really excited and in some cases (Norway included), the tickets went sold out some weeks before the show.
The first band who took the stage was Infected Rain. They come from Moldova and built up a name doing everything by themselves, getting a lot of fans around the world. This year they finally signed a contract with the well-known label Napalm Records and released their fourth album “Endorphin”. They kicked off with “Mold” and we could feel the energy coming off the stage immediately. The band sounds tight with the riffs from Vadim “Vidick” Ozhog and Serghei Babici, combined with the pounding drums of Eugen Voluta and groovy bass of Vladimir Babici. Their charismatic vocalist Elena Cataraga AKA Lena Scissorhands alternates screams with clean vocals providing the dose of aggression this evening. This was their first time playing in Norway and left a really good impression on the audience who were enthusiastic towards the end, specially when Lena asked for a circle pit during the last song “Sweet, Sweet Lies”.
Then it was time for Lacuna Coil. The Italians just released their new album “Black Anima” which had very positive response from both media and fans. They went on stage wearing their current horror outfits and began with “Blood, Tears, Dust” followed by a classic on their setlist, “Our Truth”. Even though they have been touring for six weeks across Europe, the energy displayed on stage was the same as usual.
Cristina and Andrea vocals still work perfectly complementing each other with the latest getting more aggressive on the songs from the latest album such as “Layers of Time”. They also played “Enjoy the Silence”, the Depeche Mode cover that was released as a single for their “Karmacode” album from 2006, and it was cheered by the audience as one can expect.
However, one of the highlights was “Heaven’s a Lie”, which was announced by Cristina as an old school song and I just couldn’t believe it’s been already seventeen years since “Comalies” was released. Mind blowing. This was the oldest song on their setlist, by the way.
They ended their performance with “Nothing Stands In Our Way” after making the audience repeat the words “We Fear Nothing” several times. The crowd was definitely excited and singing out loud, specially the chorus. It was the perfect choice to conclude the set.
One of the best Folk Metal bands these days is Eluveitie and they were the ones headlining this evening. The three ladies in the band, Fabienne Erni (vocals/celtic harp/mandola), Nicole Ansperger (violin) and Michalina Malisz (hurdy gurdy) first appeared on stage alone dressed in white for a ritualistic intro, then they left and came back with a different outfit along with the rest of the members before an excited audience. “Ategnatos” is their latest album and they started their set with the catchy title track followed by “King”, a track from “Origins” (2014).
They get along well and one can notice that immediately when they’re on stage making jokes and smiling to each other and that’s something that crowds enjoy to see.
The hit “Call of the Mountains” was performed in their native Swiss German language (“De Ruef vo de Bärge”) and of course was one of the unforgettable moments that night. But Eluveitie’s music has a lot of variation, from the more folk moments where whistles, violin, harp, hurdy gurdy and mandolin are essential to the headbanging moments where the riffs provided by Jonas Wolf and Rafael Salzmann take the lead role. Chrigel Glanzmann and Fabienne Erni usually share duties when it comes to vocals, harsh and clean respectively, but there are some exceptions where they do a few songs alone. In fact, Fabienne stayed alone on stage singing “Artio” and this way we could appreciate even more her vocal skills.
There was time for a solo from the drummer Alain Ackermann and several songs from the new album such as “Deathwalker”, “The Slumber”, “Worship”, “Ambiramus”, “Breathe” and “Rebirth”. Other highlights were classics such as “A Rose for Epona” and “Inis Mona” where the crowd sang along.
All the instruments were in the right place and the band sounded tight thanks to the good job from the sound engineer in a nice venue like Vulkan Arena.
It was a really nice evening where the audience clearly enjoyed the three shows even if they were there for just one of the bands.
SETLIST INFECTED RAIN
01- Mold
02- Passerby
03- Orphan Soul
04- Lure
05- Black Gold
06- The Earth Mantra
07- Sweet, Sweet Lies
SETLIST LACUNA COIL
01- Intro / Blood, Tears, Dust
02- Our Truth
03- Reckless
04- Layers of Time
05- Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode cover)
06- The House of Shame
07- Sword of Anger
08- Heaven’s a Lie
09- Veneficium
10- Nothing Stands In Our Way
SETLIST ELUVEITIE
01- Ategnatos
02- King
03- Call of the Mountains (De Ruef vo de Bärge)
04- Deathwalker
05- Quoth The Raven
06- The Slumber
07- Worship
08- Artio
09- Epona
10- A Rose for Epona
11- Ambiramus
12- Drum Solo
13- Havoc
14- Thousandfold
15- Breathe
16- Helvetios
Encore:
17- Rebirth
18- Inis Mona
