The concert was held at the regular venue for all metal tours that come down here, the Culture Room. It is a small club, but the sound is nice. There was only one supporting band at this show. I am not sure who plays with them the rest of the US tour, perhaps it is all local bands, but this show was opened by South Florida’s own fusion/prog metal band Aghora.

Aghora came out to a packed house. In fact, I was surprised at how many people came out to this show. Normally, most of the metal shows in South Florida are some sort of death metal; the promoters just don’t think it’s a profitable venture to bring melodic bands down here. Aghora has a solid following locally, but I think it is safe to say that this was their biggest show in South FL.

And they did not disappoint. Having just gone through a major lineup change (due to injuries and personal decisions three of five band members were different this time around) and only a few days of rehearsals, they brought their A game to this bill. And despite not getting proper sound check, they still sounded great. Ah, I just love bands overcoming adversities, I truly am a sucker for such inspirational stories. Or maybe I’ve just watched too much NBC Winter Olympics coverage and they’ve finally got to me.

But enough of me being silly. After some time apart, Alan Goldstein is back in the band on bass and this was also the first time I got to see the band with the new rythm guitarist Alex Meade. However the most intriguing change in the lineup was the new vocalist Diana Serra. Their former vocalist, Danishta Rivera left due to personal reasons some weeks ago. At 19 years old, Diana looked comfortable on stage, despite it being her first show. I do not think her voice is as polished as Danishta’s was yet, but she shows a lot of promise. Her voice is a bit deeper and more on the aggressive side than Danishta’s subtle stylings. Although, as I said, Diana’s performance could use refinement, I chalk it up to her young age and inexperience. On the plus side, she brings a much more energetic stage presence that helped draw the audience into actively participating in the show.

They only played two songs from their self-titled album: the fan favorites Immortal Bliss and Satya. Satya is my favorite Aghora song, it just perfectly summarizes what the band is all about. The rest of the material was new, from their soon to be released sophomore effort, such as Dual Alchemy and Atma’s Heave. The newer songs sound very heavy, down-tuned and with a lot of shredding; but also with a fair amount of change ups in dynamics. A couple of times some moshing actually broke out, which I’ve never seen for a prog band before. The band’s mastermind Santiago Dobles wowed everyone with his blazing guitar licks and his unique soloing style.

Overall, they sounded awesome given the circumstances. Hopefully they made new fans from this show, such incredible musicians need to be noticed.

Next up was the headliner. Now I will not beat around the bush and say this right now. I hated this band when I heard their records before. This kind of music just doesn’t appeal to me at all. The happy, keyboard-y power metal that they play is not my cup ‘o tea. I’m not a huge power metal fan in general, but it’s power metal give me aggressive German stuff–like Blind Guardian, Brainstorm or Rage. I saw Stratovarius last year and enjoyed them immensely. I guess this band sounds pretty close to Stratovarius, and they site them as a huge influence. As a matter of fact, Sonata Arctica do not even consider themselves power metal, they prefer to be called melodic metal. I think that’s a bit ambiguous, so for all intents and purposes, they’re power metal to me.

So now that I got those disclaimers out of the way, how did they actually perform? Most of the band members put on a great show, with the exception of the bassist Marko Paasikoski who seemed as excited as a corpse on stage (hey, maybe he could play for a black metal band!) Their set list consisted of a mix of fast songs and kind of/sort of ballads with lots of sing alongs. Some of the more well-known songs they played were 8th Commandment, Destruction Preventer, My Land, Victoria’s Secret, and Full Moon.

What pleasantly surprised me is that the band didn’t come out wearing typical BDSM-tight-leather-and-platform-boots outfits that power metal bands so oftern abuse. Tony Kakko (vocals) came out wearing a kind of red pajama pants, and Henrik Klingenberg (keys) looked like he should be in death metal band with his Strapping Young Lad shirt, scruffy Viking beard and a dazed look on his face. I like when bands break free from conventions, and Sonata Arctica didn’t have a problem with that in this regard.

An interesting thing about Henrik is that he was playing a keytar. Now, you just don’t see enough of those things. I’m being ironic of course. I think keytars are a crime against humanity. But I have to say, I didn’t mind the keytaring too much. Henrik’s keytar had an interesting feature on it, which I understand is pretty common nowadays, but I’ve never seen it so I’ll talk about it. Instead of a regular vibrato knob that most keyboards have, his keytar had this black of sensor stripe that he slid his finger over to bend and vibrate notes. The result is that the bends sound a lot more natural and controlled, there’s nothing more annoying to me than annoying keyboard bends that go “WEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOW” out of tune.

Anyway, I digress. Henrik had a really good tone and I enjoyed the keyboard soloing for a change. And there was a lot of it. And a lot of trading leads with the guitarist Jani Liimatainen who shreds quite well. This type of music is a little straightforward for my taste, but they put on a great show and they pleased the fans that came to see them. Near the end of the show Tony gave the crowd a mini singing and falsetto lesson and that was the most fun part of their set for me.

Aghora photos courtesy of Ronnie Hidalgo.

Sonata Arctica photos courtesy of Ara.

This entry was posted by Deathshred King on Wednesday, 1st March, 2006 at 3:00 and is filed under Live Performances, Sonata Arctica, Aghora. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response below. You may view a   printable version of this page. You may download this page in   PDF format.