Creatures from the Black Abyss Tour - Febr. 18th, 2011
Lord Filth and Co. thrilled the Rocky Mountain region fans with a tour stop at the Gothic Theater in Englewood, CO on a beautiful Friday in February. Yap, I am talking about Cradle of Filth, no explanation needed, the band out of Suffolk, England has been around since the early 90’s.
The economy must be on an upswing, because when I rolled into the parking lot around early afternoon, a line to get into show had already formed. Fans really came out of the woodworks for that one; I even met 3 dudes from Salt Lake City, UT that made the trip just to see the mighty Cradle.
“Creatures from the Black Abyss” was the name of the tour and I was surprised to see such a diverse mix of support bands. Finnish bands Daniel Lioneye and Turisas, plus Chicago icons Nachtmystium were tagged to get the sometimes close-minded CoF fans going.
I was rather stoked to finally see Turisas because for some reason I managed to miss them over the years. They are a Finnish folk metal band but one would never guess by their stage outfits, battle gear and faces painted in red with black stripes. Enhancing their music with a violin and a chickie rocking out on an accordion, the band apparently brought pure joy to the Colorado crowd. And yes, I said apparently, I totally missed their entire set because I thought they would go on second. Once I finally made my way into the venue I knew I missed something great because a lot of folks were blown away by Turisas.
Minus points to me for not looking at the running order; plus points because I got to catch up with Blake from Nachtmystium.
Next up was Daniel Lioneye which is a side project by HIM guitarist Linde and features several members of said band. Since HIM is not my cup of tea I really didn’t expect much out of their performance, but to my surprise they really are not that bad. Linde had a 9 year hiatus on writing new stuff and apparently got it right this time. Their music is heavier, almost Goth metal like mixed with a dose of hard rock and black metal. I know it sounds weird, but trust me it really works for those guys. Honestly I didn’t think they would sound that hard but in the end I only heard positive things about the band and hopefully the American metal fans will have a chance to see them live again.
Then it was finally time for the other band I was dying to see that night to hit the stage. The Chicago Meddler’s Nachtmystium haven’t been in the Denver region for years so I was looking forward to seeing them live again. Starting as a pure Black Metal outfit, founder Blake Judd (vocals, guitar) ventured away from this oversaturated genre a couple of albums ago, and incorporated more psychedelic, ambient elements, and heavy metal grooves. To sum it up, a whole lot of different music genres all put together while still sounding heavy and brutal as shit.
Nachtmystium released their last album Addicts: Black Meddle Part II in June of 2010 but never really did a proper tour for it. So it was no surprise that the set list contained mostly songs of their new work. As a matter of fact they did not play anything before Assassins (2008) which made for a more contemporary set then what the old school Nachtmystium fans might have expected.
I heard that on other gigs of this tour the crowd did not get into them. Well this was definitely not the case at the Denver show; the pit went apeshit when they played “Hellish Overdose”.
It was also great to see Sanford Parker (synthesizer, effects) as part of the touring line up. This fact alone gave their performance that little extra that is hard to mimic with a soundboard alone. Nachtmystium is certainly a band that is best enjoyed with an open mind to music. Do yourself a favor, listen to their stuff in the comfort of your home and come out to support this Chicago grown band the next time they hit town, you won’t regret it! And neither did the over 800 people strong metal fans that packed the Gothic Theater during their set.
Set change that took for fricking ever indicated that Cradle of Filth was about to Rock ‘n Roll. Honestly I don’t even know why it took that long because their stage set was not as elaborate as last time; CoF backdrop, tons of strobe lights and well that was it. But this visual deficiency was made up by the hard core Cradle fans that came out to support their heroes. It has been a long time since I last saw that many platform boots, long overcoats and face paint. And a quick word to the ladies: if you are over a size 4 no one wants to see your 46 DD boobs hanging out of a 34 A bra; its nauseating not sexy.
Now that this is out of the way, on to the actual show on stage. I am not a huge Cradle fan but did have the opportunity to catch their shows each time they came to town. One thing I noticed right away is that Dani Filth is sporting short hair now instead of his long dreads. No clue if this is news, but thought I might throw that in here. But luckily Mr. James McIlroy is still playing the guitar and his long as shit blond hair made up for the aforementioned fact. Besides Dani and James, the other band members were pretty much stationary, no head banging, hair twirling and all that good stuff. But this did not deter them to put on a kick ass show. Dave Pybus (bass) and Paul Allender (guitar) are a joy to watch and their dark demeanor certainly adds to the flavor of the music.
The set list was all over the place as well. Since this is Cradle’s first tour in support of the new release album “Darkly, Darkly, Venus Aversa” (Nov. 2010) I would of thought they play more song from it, but only 2 made it into their set.
It was nice to hear the backing vocals of their keyboardist on several songs because her voice clearly gave that little extra which created a very powerful atmosphere.
Dani really knows how to please his followers and the about 90 minute performance contained mostly fan-favorites. In my opinion most of the songs ran together and there could have been more up tempo songs, but the crowd didn’t mind.
This concert was a win for all of the Cradle of Filth fans that came out. It felt like a sweat box in the Gothic Theater and the mosh pit was going strong the entire time. I would venture out to say that we can expect Dani & Co to come back, rather sooner then later, because the band had a great time as well, which definitely was apparent in their performance.
Related Articles:
Review on MileHighFeedback (MileHighFeedback)
And on Mountain Weekly News (mtnweekly.com)
Was also featured on LOUD (loudmag.com)