Opeth – Santana Hall – São Paulo – April the 5th, 2009
Review and English version: Filipe Diniz*
Pictures: Filipe Diniz
After long road hours, we finally arrived at the Santana Hall. The most curious fact about the venue was that, after the Opeth concert, which was scheduled to 7 PM, the same place would present the lame Brazilian folk band Calcinha Preta ("black panties" in Portuguese).
This was almost an unreal situation. We got out of the bus and faced a very long line! But, as I heard, "a metal concert begins in the line" and we spent some time checking the musical taste of the audience through the t-shirts, which is always a real anthropological experience.
The venue was really a shoe-box kind of building (i.e. bad acoustics) which was so small that any place would have allowed me to watch the show from very close, which is always a good thing! After a while, the opening act starts with the band "Of The Archangel". It kind of gave us a tone of good mood for the entire evening when the lead singer picked up the microphone and said that it was a great honor to them and to the "other opening act, Opeth playing before Calcinha Preta", which was answered by everybody´s sarcastic shouting "Calcinha! Calcinha!". Due to the tight schedule, the band could not present its full set-list but acted really professionally ending the show without complaining about “the imperialist tyranny of the great international bands over the small national ones” (good for them!).
So, with a short 20 minute-delay, our Swedish friends got to the stage. A highlight in this current Opeth lineup is the monstrous drummer Axe. He appears at the Wacken Carnage DVD by the Akerfeldt side-project Bloodbath (highly recommended for the initiated ears!) and leaves no question about his drumming skills. They began with the brand new song from the latest album Watershed called Heir Apparent. I don't have to tell you that they were really well received by the whole audience who was truly excited. In order not to leave a shadow of doubt about how great the concert would be, they almost immediately hit the clean guitar chords for the start of the epic Ghost of Perdition, from the classic album Ghost Reveries. This song in particular gave me goosebumps from the very beginning!
From that point, it was a set of amazing songs visiting several moments in the band history. They played Godhead's Lament, Credence, Hessian Peel, Leper Affinity, Closure, The Night and the Silent Water and wrapped it up in the best possible way: playing the all-time best song in their career (in the humble opinion of this writer) The Lotus Eater! This song represents a lot of what Opeth is really about, putting together clean vocals, grawls, death metal riffs with psychedelic progressive phrasing. I also heard that it is currently the favorite Opeth song for Mikael Akerfeldt. After a short break, the came back for the encore and the crowd started to ask for different songs. At last, the band finished the presentation with the great Deliverance, which will be stuck in the audience´s memory for a long time!
But the point that was really unique was their attitude. First of all, they are a band that can be classified as having a sound near to extreme metal, but they are not at all like what it would be expected. Their solos presented a well-crafted melody where each note seems to be "the" note and they do not have the need for hiding behind virtuous juggling. It is a very difficult thing to get. It is even more difficult if you consider the death / progressive metal context which they are part of. In second place, all songs have a dark and intense quality which is very identifiable with the band itself. It is even more highlighted by the beautiful harmony work coming from the guitars / keyboards / clean vocals. At the same time, the crunch guttural vocals delivered by Mikael Akerfeldt are absolutely distinct! I have seem numerous Youtube videos of people trying to copy it.
In third place, but not less important, they let go the entire metalhead image and behavior in their performance! The proof of it was that, watching the crowd flashing the devil-horns symbol with their hands (supposedly created by Ronnie James Dio) Akerfeldt, using his peculiar radio-announcer voice when talking to the audience, said that it was something to remain in the past and presented the metal symbol of the future: the Hook! He lifted his arm making a sign of a hook bending his index finger. It was like he was saying: "we don't want to be like any other metal band. We want to be ourselves. We want to be unique!". The funny thing was to see the whole crowd doing the same gesture.
Besides that, good humor was the rule! Every time someone in the first row pointed a camera to him, Mikael started to wave to the camera with a goofy smile. He had entered the stage wearing a black t-shirt with the picture of Conan, The Barbarian! Yes! The Governator! Later, when the audience shouted together "Conan! Conan!", he explained that this movie was the worst movie he has ever seen and he only came with this shirt because Arnold was so muscular and sexy. Later, somebody threw a Brazilian soccer team shirt at the stage. There was the name of his daughter “Melinda” written in the back. He looked very grateful and told she was starting to learn hoe to play soccer and that hi himself used to play when he was a child, remembering that he was also a soccer fan showing his team symbol tattooed in his forearm. Which metal singer would talk about his daughter's sports habits during a performance? Very good!
At the end of the show, during the band members presentation, he still mocked the metal gods when he described himself as "lead singer, guitar player, song-writer, genius and having stars all over his head" and saying that "his ego needed more applause"! And, for the last song, he personified the metal gods character asking the audience, sarcastically in a pre-formatted metal singer speech, to make some f***ing noise and stuff.
Conclusion: a kickass concert! Very good songs and fantastic attitude! There were a few songs left out: Bleak, The Grand Conjuration and Drapery Falls, for example. But, for a band that each song may represent extra 10 minutes or so in duration of the performance, a ideal show would last over 3 hours! It´s said, even for the short available time, it was an excellent concert!
* Filipe Diniz is a long term rock fan who is always present in all concerts. Even though his isn´t a professional photographer he is usually with his awesome camera taking even more awesome pictures (see Hard Blast Kiss and Queen pictures). As we know he is a good writer too and has the rock expertise no doubt, Hard Blast invited him to write OPETH´s concert review. Thanks a lot Filipe!!!
