Opeth North American Tour feat. Katatonia – REVIEW

The Vic Theater in Chicago played host to Opeth’s North American tour feat. Katatonia. You can check out our review after the break!

Dark, brooding, melodic, heavy, beautiful… The mood and music on the Friday evening of October 28th can be described by all of these words. The venue of choice was the Vic Theater, a 1912 built theater in mid-Chicago. A lot of the fans were true die-hards and recognized each other from other shows around the US. Before the doors opened, the tension among those waiting could have cut with knife as they shared stories of other times they had seen the featured bands live and thoughts on the headlining band’s latest album.

When the doors finally open, we were greeted by the beautiful interior design of the venue and the back drop of Katatonia’s album artwork from “Night Is the New Day” (Peaceville Records). Even though it was technically a metal show, the crowd of people was more than friendly. There seemed to be an overwhelming sense of kinship between us, that we recognized we were all there for the same reason, and the evening was almost a bonding experience between us all.

The opening band was gothic/doom metal group Katatonia, from Stockholm, Sweden. Their presence was powerful, as drummer Daniel Liljekvist appeared focused and intent, and the string section (comprised of guitarists Anders Nyström and Per Eriksson, and bassist Niklas Sandin) kept their eyes on the crowd. Vocalist Jonas Renkse seemed as an animal with a beautiful voice with his long hair covering his face for most of the show. They opened with the first track from their 2006 release (The Great Cold Distance, Peaceville Records) “Leaders” and immediately followed up with “Liberation.”

Their music is comprised of driving grooves, aurally pleasing melodies, and articulate, sometimes intricate drums, which, when combined with Renkse’s voice, seemed to put the crowd into a trance-like state at times. Their stage show was very beautiful in a subtle sort of way. Their intensity was well complimented by a light show that changed the mood of the venue. Songs such as “Soil’s Song” and “Forsaker” had brighter, more articulate lights, whereas songs such as “The Longest Year” and “July” had very dark lights through almost the entire duration. Near the end of their set, Nyström and Renkse traded instrument positions, putting Nyström on lead vocals and changing the musical style to what he described as “black doom metal.” The last two songs (“Without God” and “Murder”) were a throwback for old Katatonia fans, and were met with great enthusiasm from the crowd. With the exit of Katatonia from the stage, the backdrop of artwork for the album “Heritage” (Roadrunner Records) rose and the headlining band took reign.

Also hailing from Stockholm, Opeth has been described as many different styles of music throughout the years, as many of their albums take on many different shades and styles of death/doom metal, progressive, and folk guitar. This evening was to be a mixture of all, except the one thing that all of the songs had in common: vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt was not to perform any growling or screaming. This put an interesting twist on the evening, to say the least. The band opened with “The Devil’s Orchard,” a beautifully progressive song that set the tone for the entire evening. There was something superbly eerie about the end of that song, as a single spotlight was on Åkerfeldt as he recited the final lyrics of the song “God is dead,” acapella.

Anyone who has seen Opeth before (or has heard about their performances) knows that it is more of an “experience” than a mere musical performance, as in between songs Åkerfeldt tends to talk for two or more minutes (reminiscent of VH1 Storytellers). He is also known to be quite a funny guy on stage, also, as he playfully pokes fun at himself, the band, the music industry, and the audience (who revels in it). Before “Porcelain Heart” he remarked how not only would this be the first time they played the song in Chicago, but how they had made a video featuring two women and an ugly man, jestingly referring to himself. The performance of “Porcelain Heart” was beautiful, featuring new keyboardist Joakim Svalberg on backing vocals for the call and response sections. Halfway through the song, drummer Martin Axenrot went into an impressive drum solo that left the audience roaring. Even Åkerfeldt could be seen moving his head back and forth, grooving to his drummers solo performance.

After performing more music from “Heritage,” a section of the show had Åkerfeldt and lead guitarist Fredrick Åkesson (who compliments Åkerfeldt superbly in so many ways) on acoustic guitars together. Bassist Martin Mendez has been known to be an incredible creative force in Opeth, moving the music with great force while still hanging in the rhythm pocket with ease. During songs such as “The Throat of Winter” his playing was so smooth that it almost sounded as if he was using a fretless bass instead of his standard Fender Jazz bass. Svalberg also had his share of shining moments in “Credence” and “Closure” he was setting the moods perfectly with his arsenal of keyboards, including a Hammond organ and two real Mellotron (which are undoubtedly expensive to maintain on the road).

One of the highlights of the evening was before the performance of “Slither,” whence Åkerfeldt gave an explanation on it being a tribute to recently deceased famous front-man Ronnie James Dio. The “last” song of the band’s set was “Hex Omega,” before they exited stage-right. After chanting “Opeth” the band reemerged and picked up their instruments, at which point Åkerfeldt thanked the audience for “playing that stupid game” where the band pretends to finish, only to return to perform their encore that is even written into the set list, contrary to the idea of an encore itself. After some more reminiscing and story-telling, the audience was treated with a requested bass solo from Mendez, a full demonstration of every keyboard by Svalberg, and even a ridiculous (in the funniest way) performance of a “crab metal” move by Åkesson. The band finally closed out the evening with the song “Folklore.”

On a personal note, the retro-progressive style of music that Opeth performed on that evening is something that I am very happy to hear come out of Axenrot, as, in the past, he has taken some heat for not having enough of a jazzy style to compare to former drummer Martin Lopez. Experiencing music from “Heritage” performed live should be enough to evacuate any of such claims, as he played every song with the precision, power, and feeling that would be expected of the backbone of Opeth.

Information about the review…
Tour: Opeth North American Tour feat. Katatonia
Bands: Opeth and Katatonia
Reviewer: Vincent Ippolito
Date: October 28, 2011
Venue: The Vic Theater in Chicago, IL