| Coheed and Cambria |
| with Closure In Moscow |
| 1/4/2008, Billboard, Melbourne. |
|
Well, the venture out to see Coheed and Cambria for the second time was again successful. A very enjoyable night and a great performance by the band. Here's the details...
We (myself, Pauly and Cam Clarke) turned up to "Billboard" around 8pm to get in (as that was the listed door opening time on the tickets). Getting in was a bit of a pain - it was a massive queue, very slow moving as well. We probably didn't get in until around 8:30 I'd say. When we did, the venue was pretty cool, I must say. Multi-level, with plenty of places to see the band, a couple of bars - a tiny area for merch though. I spent the night on the floor immediately in front of the band. More on that later. The support, Closure In Moscow, were really impressive. I mean, really impressive. I watched their first few songs and thought "Good of Coheed to bring another band out from the States for this". Then the singer said G'day and it was great to be playing their hometown! WTF? The singer, although he pranced around like a very uncomfortable sober dude at a party, sang, for my mind, in the same style as Cedric from The Mars Volta / ATDI. Great voice. The songs were cleverly constructed and interesting. The energy was high the whole time. Hell, even the guitarist on backing vocals sang better than most lead singers. If it wasn't for the venue sound, they (and Coheed) would've been mindblowing. The sound on the night, in my opinion, was far too loud, and pretty muddy and loose in parts. It definitely didn't do this band or Coheed any justice, which was disappointing, and at times distracting. I'll definitely check this band out again though, and I hope they get a solid following and some success. Coheed and Cambria were awesome. Given I had determined that the sound was shit, I decided to make it a night of movement, not standing back digesting the sights and sounds. It appears as though most of the crowd had decided on the latter approach however, as I've rarely seen a more zombie-like crowd. There was a small pocket of people front and centre jumping around, moshing and crowd-surfing (including me all bar the crowd-surfing), but for the rest of the crowd, they just stood motionless most of the time. Didn't really bring an awesome vibe, as you could imagine. In any case, it was a great setlist from Coheed, covering all albums;
I'm writing the second half of this review over a month from when I actually saw the band, but it was such a good night, a lot of it still appears crystal clear in my memory. While the sound wasn't that great at the venue, it was a good show, with Claudio bringing out the double-necked guitar, some great vocals (including two female back up singers) and an incredibly long jam at the end (culminating in a pretty impressive drum solo). Whilst I don't think it was quite as good as when I saw them in 2006, it was still a great show, and was good to hear some of the new songs live. |