Dio, HammerFall, King's X
Roseland Theater, Portland, OR U.S.A.
November 8, 2002
Review By Michael De Los Muertos
Additional Commentary & Pictures by Ice Maiden
Ronnie James loves to play Portland. That much is obvious. He's been
here three times in the past 2˝ years--contrasted with bands like
Manowar, who manage a Portland performance on average of twice a
decade!--and there are a fair amount of Portland's true metalheads who
have a locally-bought Dio concert shirt (or two) hidden away in their
closets. I'm a fan of R.J.D. (who isn't?), but having seen and reviewed
two prior performances I was mostly interested in this show to see
HammerFall. In fact, among the Portland metal folks--Ice Maiden,
Stormwriter, Witch Hunter and his wife, and myself--who gathered at
Fellini's an hour before the show, HammerFall was the main topic of
conversation. Sadly the advance verdict on their new album is generally
unfavorable. I was therefore a bit nervous about their long-awaited
performance. Would they play any of their new stuff, which Witch described
as "nu hair metal?" Or would they revert to their old-style
crushing power metal performances, such as at Satyricon four years ago or
the headlining shot at Wacken 2001?
Alas, Fellini's, although a pleasant and convenient gathering place for
the metalheads, has lost its game. We had to wait several minutes before
the barmaid even acknowledged our existence. Having been ill for much of
this week with severe allergies, downing the last half of my Black Butte
Porter in five or six swallows on the way out the door probably wasn't the
best idea. I wouldn't want to spend the HammerFall set in the Roseland
Theater's squalid men's room, puking into some grimy toilet! For all of
these reasons this show, although exciting, was a bit touch-and-go for me
at first.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: I was super-pumped for Hammerfall
and Dio, and had never heard of Kings X. After I few Midori Sours-mmmm,
engine fluid.-I was ready to go. Not willing to miss any of Hammerfall, I
left Muertos with WitchHunter and took off with Stormwriter for the venue.
In like Flynn..woohoo! And they started the show EARLY!!!)
It remained so at first. Unfortunately I was still in line
at the door when HAMMERFALL began their set. Hearing the muted drone of
"Steel Meets Steel" from one floor up I was astonished--please
tell me some sadistic promoter didn't make HammerFall the opener! As soon
as my press credentials were verified I eagerly bounded up the stairs to
the main room. Inexcusable! HammerFall, one of the guardians of modern
power metal, and fellow citizens of my girlfriend's home town of
Gothenburg, Sweden, was relegated to the opening slot, like they were some
third-rate mallcore act! Nevertheless, my worries at the bar turned out to
be unfounded. HammerFall were just as dynamic and enjoyable as they've
always been. Their performance did not quite match the unbridled power of
their jaw-dropping outing at Satyricon in December 1998 (on the Death
tour), but it was still excellent all around. Frontman Joacim Cains is an
energetic and charismatic spokesman for the band. His vocals aren't the
greatest that power metal has to offer, but he has a very familiar,
fun-loving style that definitely helps to whip up the energy onstage. Also
it was good to see the rest of the band having fun. Guitarist Oskar
Dronjak--whom I had the pleasure to meet in the lobby of our hotel at
Wacken this past summer--and bassist Magnus Rosen were grinning like
Cheshire Cats through most of the set, which was due to its short length
necessarily an abridged version of HammerFall's highlights.
"Renegade," "Let The Hammer Fall" and
"HammerFall" (not to be confused with each other) were probably
the best songs of the shockingly short thirty-minute presentation. I heard
no "nu hair metal." I really wish HammerFall had more time,
because I would have loved to have heard "Heeding The Call" or
even "Glory to the Brave," which, given the enthusiastic mood of
the true-metal crowd in the audience, would probably have gone over
surprisingly well. It was an absolute sin to put a band as strong as
HammerFall at the top of this bill. Bring me the head of whatever promoter
made that decision! Enough of Portland's power metal fans own swords that
this guy should watch his back when he walks the streets…
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: 30 fricking minutes.
Scandal and waste. The set list: Riders…, Heeding, Renegade, Let the
Hammer Fall, Hearts, and Hammerfall. This was an AWESOME set, but
Hammerfall, the best band on the bill, opening??? WTF???)
Between sets, as always, it's great fun to catch up with
the Portland metal folks, and I saw several of them on tap, including some
cool guys I'd met at the Kreator/Destruction show at the end of September.
Several of them, who had no interest in King's X and Dio (!), were
departing for Satyricon to see whatever non-metal band was playing there,
but one cheerful fellow who couldn't stop raving about the
December-scheduled Blind Guardian show in Seattle remained and we talked
for a while. It's definitely good to see some local people appreciate good
metal. Why don't we get more bands like HammerFall and Blind Guardian here
in the Northwest? It's a complete sin.
KING'S
X, a band that I don't really think is metal, took the stage next. I
admire Doug Pinnick, one of the few openly gay personalities in and around
the heavy music scene, for his tenacity and sticking to his principles
despite decades of harsh criticism, but I can't say his music did much for
me. A song and a half into the King's X set we fled downstairs to the bar,
where several more beers were downed and Stormwriter, Witch Hunter and I
had an enjoyable time surveying the human wildlife drifting through the
Roseland Theater bar. We waited until King's X finished. Opinions were
split on whether Dio would be any good. Granted, he's a great singer and
musician, but when he came in March 2001 his set was quite limp--probably
because he decided (unwisely, in my opinion) to spend most of it playing
the entire Magica album from beginning to end. But, everybody was
certainly willing to give Mr. D. the benefit of the doubt.
(Ice
Maiden's Commentary: I stayed for the King's X set. Who was the
emaciated walking-stick-half-black, half-asian dude in a cowboy hat?
Granted, they harmonize amazingly well, but what is this band doing on a
metal bill? Still, to their credit, though not metal, these guys did have
a very moving sound. They were able to sway a very metal crowd, which at
the end had to give some honest cheers. Get these guys their own bill,
please.)
Ronnie
James DIO showed us how wrong we were to doubt him. From the first moment
the ex-Rainbow, ex-Black Sabbath man burst on the stage, he had the entire
crowd enthralled. I don't know if it was an exceptionally good night for
Dio or whether it was just the collective mood in the place, but I have
rarely been as completely entertained by a metal performance than I was
this night. Dio ran the gambit of older stuff, newer stuff, and stuff in
between. Rushing about from one side of the stage to the other, exercising
his formidable lung power in all the right places, Dio never threw a note
that wasn't perfect, and perfectly-executed. There was very little from
Magica, and in my opinion the set was a well-balanced survey of Dio's more
than 30 years in the metal business. Like most fans there I was most happy
with the old classics like "Rainbow" and "Man on the Silver
Mountain." As soon as Dio said the words "Holy Diver!" the
entire place went berserk. Indeed this was probably his finest rendition
of the evening, and the audience appreciated it. There wasn't a slow
moment in the entire set. At one point I looked at my watch, thinking only
twenty minutes or so had passed, and discovered it was almost one AM. Dio
came back out for an encore, of course, and he closed the show with an
audience-participation version of "We Rock." I recall he'd done
this on both previous tours through Portland, but after the power and fury
of this night's set it had added kick. At the true end of the show when
Dio and his band came onstage to take a bow you could tell that they
really felt like this had been a great performance that they were
satisfied with. Regardless of whether you came for HammerFall, King's X or
Ronnie James himself, if you were in that crowd at the end of the show you
were a diehard Dio fan.
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: This was definitely my
favorite Dio performance (I've seen him maybe 3 times?) to date. The
little guy was everywhere-hamming it up to the crowd, to the cameras (me)
and to his band-mates. Incredible set:
--Killing
the Dragon
--Egypt/Children of the Sea
--Push
--Stand Up and Shout
--Rock and Roll
--Don't Talk to Strangers
--Man on the Silver Mountain
--Long Live Rock and Roll
--Lord of the Last Day
--Fever of Dream
--Holy Diver
--Heaven and Hell
3 Encores!
--The Last in Line
--Rainbow in the Dark
--We Rock
There was also an incredible drum solo near the
beginning of the set, and an incredible guitar solo after Man on the
Silver Mountain. This was a long, long, night, and I never felt tired and
never felt like the energy was ebbing. Awesome!)
For a pleasant change the crowd at Roseland was composed
almost entirely of real metalheads. (Part of this was probably because it
was a 21-and-over show, fairly rare for the Roseland). No Shitknot
T-shirts, no fourth-graders with liberty spikes, no stupid goth chicks in
black PVC coats. Just lots and lots of cool metal people. Proof positive
that moshing is an unknown and unnecessary art among progressive/power
metal fans: at this show you could get right up to the stage without
worrying about getting knocked on your ass by some sweaty mosh-pit asshole
in a wifebeater T-shirt. Indeed this was the perfect crowd. We need more
shows like this one!
I might also add, for whatever it's worth, that over the
course of the evening I was approached by no less than four people, none
of whom I'd ever seen before, who said they were regular readers of the
Metal-Rules.com site. That I was recognized as a Metal-Rules writer was
virtually an accident. Before the show I was frantically scouring my
closet for my HammerFall T-shirt, which seems mysteriously to have
disappeared, so at the last minute I put on one of my Metal-Rules designs
and left it at that. In retrospect I'm certainly glad I did. It's great to
have some positive feedback on what we do, and the compliments I received
from these readers about the site make the long hours and hard work worth
it.
With the possible exception of Wacken and Manowar, this
was the best metal show I've been to in 2002--a fantastic, energizing, and
immensely entertaining evening where everybody, including Dio, was
enjoying themselves tremendously. At the end of the show Dio thanked
Portland and promised he'd return. Given his track record we probably
won't have to wait too long…and we're virtually guaranteed a stellar
performance. Long live Ronnie James!
(Ice Maiden's Commentary: I have much to say
about this show, but my ride to the airport to head to Atlanta for
ProgPower is waiting, so, suffice it to say: Go see this show if it comes
anywhere near you!!!)
