Sonata Arctica @ DirecTV Music Hall, São Paulo, Brazil
March 24th, 2002 – Sunday
Review By Thiago Martins
I always enjoyed going to gigs. Sometimes I hate the band that it’s
playing, but it has never been what it’s about. Gigs are about
charismas, emotion, magic. How a
band manages to play their songs live and give them the “life” that in
studio, lots of times, those songs lack of – even when sometimes the
album is a classic one.
I’ve never been a HammerFall fan, but I remember seeing them live twice,
and both times were really great – and probably I will see them again if
I have a chance. I was expecting that Sonata Arctica would kick my ass
like Edguy had done two months earlier. I have to tell it wasn’t quite
like this.
The opening set was made by a Brazilian act called Delpht. Their sound
wasn’t really great – way too loud, badly equalized. It was the first
gig from them I’ve seen with new singer Mário Pastore (former Acid Storm
and Tailgunners singer, he made the transition tracks on the William
Shakespeare’s HAMLET album). The sound was so annoying (due to the
adjustments) that
it was almost impossible to stay in the venue. I went to get some beer,
and listened to the gig from the outside, but musically the band wasn’t
bad at all.
Mário Pastore is really a great singer and it seems that he has a
difficult task in adapting his voice (he is a traditional metal singer)
to their style (melodic power metal). But as soon as he does it, the
band will get really great – maybe his vocals will be an outstanding
differential. I don’t know the band very well, so I don’t know their
songs (well, one song reminded me of Gamma Ray’s “Beyond the Black
Hole”). They finished the set with the HAMLET’s really great song “From
Hades to Earth”.
After about a 15 minute-break, Sonata Arctica hit the stage with the
song “Weballergy”. The sound was really good, all the instruments were
very clear, and I think they really played it perfectly. The singer Tony
Kakko has a really great voice (I just feel that he can make it really
better if he stops trying to hit the highest notes and give them more
feel).
Other songs played were, in order, “Kingdom for a Heart”, “Sing in
Silence”, “8th Commandment”, “Fullmoon”, “Last Drop Falls”, “San
Sebastian”, “The End of This Chapter”, “Shy”, “Revoluted”, “Power Of
One”, “Replica”, and closed the first part of the set with “My Land”. It
was a set without many highlights for me. The set varied from the fast
songs to ballads, most of them without a great riff – and a keyboard
sound that seemed to be taken from the Atari videogames. But it was
really approved by the kids there, who were really singing all the
chorus’.
The band got back on stage for the encores and played the song “Wolf and
Raven”, as well as the cover for Helloween’s “I Want Out” (that I really
didn’t like, but it was highly approved by the crowd). The band seemed
to be really enjoying the gig and many times they were shooting the
crowd’s reaction.
The attendance was about 1,000 people (very good, if you consider it was
a stormy Sunday – and rain in São Paulo means traffic chaos), and most
part of it was really young (about 15 year old in average). Although
they seemed to be tired in some parts – probably due to the problem in
the air conditioning that made the venue seem like an oven – they were
really having a good time.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t. I don’t remember being so bored in a gig
before. Not that they weren’t good, just because in no moment of the gig
I could feel some kind of “magic” or anything like that. They
just played all of their songs perfectly. Judas Priest did the same way
last year and I got a bit disappointed (and Judas Priest is probably my
all-time favorite band).
I think this must be a gig for the ones
who are really into Stratovarius and other similar power metal acts. As
I’m not, I was a lot of out of place.
www.sonataarctica.com