Opeth’s North American Heritage Tour 2013 – REVIEW

Opeth and Katatonia came through Joliet, IL recently and they both put on amazing performances for the SOLD OUT crowd! You can check out our review, after the break.

Opeth and Katatonia are an ideal pairing when it comes to dream tours. It is amazing to think that it wasn’t until the last few years, these bands decided to pair up for a tour. By the looks of it, the tour worked so well the first time that they decided to do another round and by the attendance of this show, the combo has paid off once again. The show was SOLD OUT!

Katatonia got kicking with their 50 minute brand of progressive music that transcended the very essence of what this show was about. Their mellow stage presence works magically well with the atmospheres of the music on hand. The set was heavily rooted from their latest 2 albums “Dead End Kings” and “Night Is The New Day”. However, it was the 2nd half of the set where the music started to build more tension and then the headbanging ensued from the heavier parts of their doom laden-esque music. Vocalist Jonas Renkse’s voice isn’t that far apart from the voice of the headlining act but yet it stands its ground well all on its own. If your somehow a fan of Opeth and you never got around to Katatonia, either check this tour or check out their lengthy album catalog. I can’t stress enough how much the pairing of these 2 go hand in hand!

Opeth immediately got kicking with the psychedelic opener “The Devil’s Orchard” off 2011’s “Heritage” to surprising embrace seeing that Heritage was more or less a controversial album in their career. Vocalist/guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt was quite the lively presence in between songs literally answering questions from fans and even posing for pictures while on stage. From the sad sounds of “White Cluster” and “Atonement” to the heaviness of the title track off “Deliverance” and the grand epic “Ghost Of Perdition”, the 5 piece Swedish gentleman delivered a career spanning set covering almost all era’s and sounds from their 2 decade plus career. The stand out moment of the night was the acoustic rendition of their death metal sounding classic, “Demon Of The Fall”. Never in my lifetime did I think a song consisting of such heaviness would complement itself so well on the acoustic. This one is a jammer and I sure hope one day there is a recording of it! Top form doesn’t even do justice to how great this band sounded, I will go even far as to say it was THE perfect sound. Even the keyboards and bass were perfectly heard alongside the guitars and vocals. The title track off their magnum opus “Blackwater Park” was a grand finale to close out this memorable Saturday night. Mikael announced that after this tour they will start work on the next record and I can’t even imagine what they will come up with next!

Dream tours don’t happen often so make sure you attend them because they probably won’t happen again.

Information about this review…
Tour: North American Heritage Tour
Bands: Opeth, Katatonia
Reviewer: Nicholas Wier
Date: May 11, 2013
Venue: Mojoes in Joliet, IL