GLOBAL DRAMA
CD Release Party
Tivoli
Helsingborg
Sweden
30/8 – 2008
Reviewed by: Anders Sandvall
Pictures by: Anders Sandvall
The fans have waited a long time for Cloudscape to unveil their new creation and now it’s finally here. GLOBAL DRAMA is the name of the band's third album and it was released at the end of August. I was invited by the very nice guys in the band to attend the release party that was held in their native city of Helsingborg at the rock club Tivoli. The club can host about 400 people so it’s a pretty small place.
20 minutes before the doors opened I stood in line and waited, many people had already turned up and it looked like most of the people were family close friends and fans. Inside the members of the band walked around and welcomed everyone. Tivoli is an intimate and cozy club and it was the natural and perfect place to host a release party.
After about one hour the band went on stage and announced the showing of their brand new video for the song “Cloak and Daggers”, we were also gonna see a short documentary about the band. The video was really good and the song was the natural choice to be a first single. The evening continued with mingling and at 21.00 the doors opened for the people who weren’t invited to the pre-party. At 9:30 the band entered the stage to perform.
Cloudscape
The members of the band are:
Mike Andersson – lead vocals
Björn Eliasson – guitar
Haynes Pherson – bass, b-vox
Patrik Svärd – guitar
Roger Landin – drums
The band had a huge stage to work on because the Tivoli stage is really wide and deep. Behind the band hung hung a back drop with the bands name on. The show kicked off with the song “Mind Diary” which is taken from GLOBAL DRAMA. The first song went straight into “And Then The Rain…” from the last album and singer Andersson was literally everywhere on stage. He is a brilliant frontman that knows how to work the crowd. The show moved quickly on with another track from their previous album, the song was “Will We Remain” before Andersson asked us if we maybe wanted to hear something from the band's debut disc. Then he introduced the song “As The Light Leads The Way” after which he thanked everyone for being there and for participating in their release party.
Someone in the audience shouted for “Under The Fire” but Andersson said that it wasn’t time to do that song yet. Instead he introduced “Cloak and Daggers”. Andersson, Svärd and Pherson really used the entire stage and did a great job towards the audience. Eliasson didn’t move around so much instead he let the guitar do the talking and he threw out some amazing lead guitar riffs. The band is lucky to have two guitarists that compliment each other perfectly. “Paid In Blood” was fired off which was followed by an older track called “The Last Breath”. Andersson then thought it was time for some older material and kicked off a song from their debut album called “Witching Hour”.
The audience was really laid back and didn’t make much noise at all. They were really polite and clapped their hands after every song. The reason could be that there were family and friends there and not so many unrelated fans of the band. It was a real contrast for me who is used to crowds that scream and jump around to the songs. “Eyes Of Jealousy” and “Darkest Legacy” followed and both songs were taken from GLOBAL DRAMA. “Breach In My Sanity”, “Static” and “Ritual Of The Blade” followed and in such a intimate environment I really saw how great of a frontman Andersson really was. He has an amazing vocal range and not many sing as good as he does in this genre. The band was really tight and they all are experienced and skilled musicians.
The last song for the evening was “Take The Blame” and after that Andersson thanked everyone for being there and making this night a night to remember. But the calm audience wanted more and the band returned shortly to fire off the encores “Shapeshifter” and the crowd favorite “Under Fire”. In the middle of the last song did Andersson went down to the crowd and walked around while he sang the song. When the band is about to go off stage the Roasting House crew came up with a bottle of champagne for the band. Andersson brought up everyone who had helped out with the album and suddenly was the stage jammed with people. He also reminded us that the after party was held in the backstage bar at the club.
The show lasted for 90 minutes and they performed 16 songs with the main focus on material from the new disc GLOBAL DRAMA. That meant that they did 7 songs from the new album which is nearly half of the album. The new songs sounded even better live. They were much meaner and harder than on the album. The band had things on backing tracks like keyboard parts and some background vocals but they were so few that it didn’t matter. It was a great show that didn’t lack anything. It was a happy and relaxed band that did a remarkable show for all us to see. They really showed everyone that Cloudscape is a force to be reckoned with especially now that they are about to conquer the world with their stunning new album GLOBAL DRAMA. I think this album is gonna be the big break through for Cloudscape.
A huge thanks goes out to Cloudscape for inviting me to the release party, you did a brilliant job on stage guys. Cloudscape is gonna be the next big melodic progressive metal music export from Sweden. You have been warned, this is the year of Cloudscape!
Setlist
Mind Diary
And Then The Rain
We Will Remain
As The Light Leads The Way
Cloak And Daggers
Paid In Blood
The Last Breath
Witching Hour
Eyes Of Jealousy
Darkest Legacy
Breach In My Sanity
Static
Ritual Of The Blade
Take The Blame
Encores
Shapeshifter
Under Fire
More pictures from the show
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