LEAVES' EYES, FAIRYLAND
The amount of gigs on over the weekend was plain daft but on a Monday night it was even crazier. A queue of normal looking people snaked down from The Electric Ballroom for the latest pop sensations; Marty Friedman had them packed in outside the Underworld. Further down the road was a gore-grind gig at the Purple Turtle, Nemhain somewhere in Soho and Leaves Eyes on at Dingwalls.
The queue here was large so I retired to the pub for a while and with hindsight should have stayed there for support band Fairyland. Coming on to a sprawling symphonic backing tape I wondered what was going on and where their female singer was. Chatting to the merch guy it was confirmed this was indeed Fairyland and basically the band had kicked the wench out. It had not done them any favours, how can you have fairyland with no fairy? Well to be honest looking at the posturing from some of these guys…….
I promised myself not to drink much tonight but songs like ‘The Awakening’ had me running to the bar where I was amused to see the founding figure of a famous metal radio station looking in pain and reading a book, says it all really. It wasn’t the music that aggrieved me, the virtuoso guitar flourishes were all well and good but the posturing and terrible vocals simply had me cringing. Introducing the band members for little solo bursts added to the pretentiousness of the affair, Wembley you will never play!
I sometimes feel guilty giving scathing reviews, not here this was pure unmitigated crap and I hope I never see as bad a band as this again in 2007.
We needed something that wasn’t an atrocity and by 9.40 when the Leaves Eyes came on sheer boredom and drunkenness had set in, so the band couldn’t really fail and they had us lapping it up from the second they burst into ‘Farewell Proud Men’. Liv Kristine’s birdsong sweet vocals were spot on but it took a while for the sound to settle, at 1st the instrumentation pretty much clattered all over the shop. The vocalist proved that blue suits her just as well as the red costume she sported last visit to London and she was clearly in here element, beaming away at us at every opportunity.
Hubby Alex Krull literally stormed the stage every time his vocals were called on and boy is hair damn long. A sea of hands from the crowd front of stage met ‘Oceans Way’, cameras flashed catching Liv like a startled rabbit in their light but she didn’t miss a note on songs like ‘The Thorn.’
‘Senses Capture’ took us on an acoustic trance inducing Kate Bush eat your heart out sort of trip and gave Mr Krull time for a breather. Tracks off Vinland Saga were the ones I knew the best and was happy when I recognised numbers such as ‘New Found Land’ but the icing on the cake was surely provided by title song ‘Leaves Eyes’ a number guaranteed to make an icy heart melt.
Time for an encore and for some reason during ‘Legend Land’ Alex dragged a hapless audience member who had been innocently taking some pictures onto the stage, the guy looked terrified. Finishing off with ‘Elegy’ I contemplated a set that had been somewhat marred by muddy sound and although this hadn’t electrified me it had certainly left a warm glow of satisfaction on the journey home.
Pete Woods
LONDON DINGWALLS 02/04/07