Sunday isn’t anyone’s favorite day to attend a concert, but it’s a disadvantage of tours, you have to be flexible…
The first band was DAGOBA, a french groovy band in charge of starting the hostilities. Apparently not very known to the Portuguese audience, a conclusion taken based on both the amount of people and reaction in-between songs. Either way, the musicians gave all they had in an energetic show, where no one can complain that they put an effort on cheering up the people watching the show. Powerful grooves echoed in Hard Club’s Room 1, with a special mention to Shawter’s vocal skills and attitude. The highlight of the concert was the song “Black Smokers”. A band which deserves more attention, specially from people who like Fear Factory and similar acts.
Brittish Power Metal flagship DRAGONFORCE brought their new full length “Maximum Overload”. Starting with the old single “Fury of the storm”, followed by “Three Hammers”, it didn’t take long to realize how good and perceptible the sound start to be. Every detail could be heard, which made the concert more enjoyable. After a couple of songs, the sound start to worsen, but not much. Marc Hudson’s vocals fit the music perfectly and his attitude was quite friendly. Actually, the whole band was quite entertaining on stage. No doubt that all of them possess great musicianship, because the whole band sounded incredibly tight. Before finishing, Dragonforce took everyone back to the first album with the title single “Valley Of The Damned”, which was followed by the well known success that is “Through the Fire and Flames”. This last song was the biggest highlight of the performance.
Last, but not least… headliners EPICA showed up on time, one by one, after a pretty long intro. Simone Simons, the bands charismatic frontwoman was, of course, last. Even though they had been in the country a couple of months before, that didn’t prevent Hard Club to be close to full. With the latest “The Quantum Enigma” album to introduce, what better way to start the show just like the album starts? The first 3 songs were like that, followed by the hit single “Unleashed”. The sound was alright, but could be better, specially Simone’s voice could hardly be heard at times… “Storm The Sorrow”, the previous album’s single ensued. Just like the guys that played before, this band’s performance seems tight and thought through until the last details, making the whole band interact with the audience, making people cheer, asking questions and taking small interludes here and there. “The Obsessive Devotion” was a great song, definitely a highlight. So was “Cry For the Moon”, a more quiet song where Simon can shine even more… Ariën, the band’s drummer presented everyone with a great and entertaining drum solo before the last few songs. “The Fifth Guardian” was the final interlude introducing “Chemical Insomnia” and “Unchain Utopia” from “The Quantum Enigma”. The show ended with the band’s classical song “Consign To Oblivion”.
Overall, a good night… Hard Club was almost full, and the concerts were high quality. Once again, schedules were taken in consideration and there weren’t big delays.
Special thank you to Prime Artists.
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