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Review: Apocalyptica/Epica, O2 Academy
Downshifting from the giant arenas of Europe to the city hall-sized venues of the UK, where these bands aren’t played on the radio and are rarely mentioned in the mainstream press, this oft-rescheduled co-headlining tour, originally planned for 2020, swiftly had the Academy packed to the rafters.
First up are Finnish (though their frontman sounds suspiciously like a Brit) tour support Wheel, whose brand of busy, heavily Tool-influenced modern prog-metal contrasts sharply with the music of the headline acts.
is needed now More than ever
The accomplished quartet get to play just a handful of songs, some of which are agreeably lengthy, and are warmly received. Let’s hope they make good on that promise to return soon.
Way back at the start of the millennium, relatively short-lived Dutch band After Forever became the first symphonic metal act to play in Bristol with a show at the late lamented Bristol Bierkeller. The few hundred of us present could not have anticipated that we were on the ground floor of something that would become so huge. Today, vocalist Floor Jansen fronts Nightwish, while guitarist Mark Jansen went on to found Epica.
The ‘alternating line-up’ rules of the co-headlining tour mean that for their third show at the Academy, Epica have to go on first, despite being the natural headliner. As the name suggests, the sextet have never been characterised by restraint and tonight they’ve brought a brand new split-level production – presumably cut down from the arena version – with video screens spanned across two surfaces. These display a continuous barrage of artwork, animations, videos and song lyrics, often to magnificent dramatic effect. That gives Coen Janssen comparatively little room to wrangle his perambulating and revolving keyboard, but he’s brought along the curved keytar again, which he wields to great crowd-pleasing effect.
At first, singer Simone Simons negotiates the steps between levels a little tentatively in her goth boots, but she’s soon romping around, headbanging furiously and attempting to orchestrate the occasional wall of death, though the audience are packed in so tightly that this proves difficult to achieve. Despite all the cavorting, she never misses a note.
As if feeling the urge to remind us of why we loved them in the first place, they play a career-spanning set reaching right back to The Phantom Agony for the singalong Cry for the Moon (with visual prompts for the chorus) and including just one from the recent Alchemy Project album.
Mark Jansen showcases his death metal roots with the growled vocals to the likes of the ironically titled The Essence of Silence, while fellow guitarist Isaac Delahaye even gets to show off his shredding on Beyond the Matrix. By this time, Coen is literally hurling himself at his keyboard and demonstrating his dad dancing moves.
When they formed three decades ago, Apocalyptica were a bunch of Sibelius Academy graduates playing metal covers – mostly Metallica – on four cellos. Over the years, they’ve shed a cellist, gained a drummer and toured with everyone from Rammstein to Sabaton, but not all of their tweaks have been successful. The deployment of guest vocalists on their own compositions has occasionally led to them sounding dangerously like an ordinary rock band. They redressed the balance with 2020’s Cell-0 album, which returned to the instrumental format. Several of these tracks open their show, the most impressive being the stirring Rise.
Possibly suffering from cello envy, Mikko Sirén has brought along the most enormous drum kit, including electronic percussion and more cymbals that anyone could possibly need, though he manages to play all of them.
But they clearly decided that something extra was needed to compete with the ‘everything including the kitchen sink’ approach of Epica, so singer Franky Perez, who performed with them at their previous Academy show in 2015, is back for three songs: I’m Not Jesus, the title track from Shadowmaker and I Don’t Care. Perez certainly has a strong, if rather generic American alternative rock voice, but what we’re really yearning for are those Metallica covers.
Eventually, Apocalyptica oblige and their set takes off with Nothing Else Matters – the audience providing the vocals. That’s followed by a vigorous thrash through Sepultura’s Inquisition Symphony and a return to Metallica for Seek & Destroy. That’s more like it.
Eicca Toppinen has done all the talking on previous shows in Bristol, but tonight lead cellist Perttu Kivilaakso introduces the band and makes some quips about being Finnish. He’s also the most rock’n’roll member of Apocalyptica, throwing himself around, rolling on the floor and even playing his cello behind his back. It’s all remarkably coordinated, given that you could easily have someone’s eye out with the pointy end of one of those things, but they’ve been at this for a long time now and know what they’re doing.
We’re past the curfew now, but they return for our traditional lesson in classical music: a lighting-speed romp through Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. Shame there was no onstage collaboration between the two bands, as there has been on previous dates on this tour, but that’s a minor quibble.
All pix by Mike Evans
Read more: Metal & Prog Picks: February 2023
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