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Opeth Concert Review
It seems odd in retrospect, but before this past Wednesday, I had never seen an Opeth concert. Inexplicably, I missed their 2006 headlining tour and haven’t been excited by the festival packages they’ve appeared on since, since Opeth’s discography is an immersive experience and I had no desire for my first Opeth show to be inundated with scenesters and cut short by some uninteresting headliner. So when the band announced their headlining tour for the fall, I knew I would get no better chance to see them under the right circumstances. Support for the first leg of the tour was to be High on Fire and Nachtmystium, with Baroness taking over for Nachtmystium on the latter leg.
That support transition got a little rocky a few days before the Chicago date at the House of Blues, however, when Nachtmystium announced their departure from the tour with the ubiquitous, “due to events beyond our control…” line. Although no one with knowledge about the situation is willing to speak about the situation on the record, the rumors are that Blake and company acted a bit too much like rock star divos and were summarily kicked off. Audiences haven’t minded, though; on this tour—unlike 2006’s stellar lineup that also included the Devin Townsend Band and Dark Tranquillity—few people were coming to see High on Fire or Nachtmystium instead of Opeth. Riding the wave of ‘Watershed’s success, this tour is all about Mikael’s crew.
Therefore, since Nachtmystium had dropped off and Chicago had no local support acts, the show opened straightaway with High on Fire. Without a curfew deadline to worry about (the show’s scheduled start was at 5:30), and without any secondary support, they had a full 90 minutes to perform. Led by the erstwhile Sleep-er Matt Pike on vocals and guitar, High on Fire are one of the more successful stoner/sludge metal groups in today’s scene. The band is presently touring in support of their most recent LP, ‘Death Is This Communion’, and that album cover was projected onto the backdrop for their set.
Pike rocks the stage like a young Lemmy Kilmister, both in his rough-edged looks and rasping vocals. His guitar, a First Act custom 10-string, is a far cry from Lemmy’s Rickenbacker bass, though, and he wails on it with abandon. His other two band members, drummer Des Kensel especially, contribute to a tremendous racket that rivals Krisiun as one of metal’s loudest power trios. Kensel, the band’s first and only drummer, had a great presence in the mix and the material itself, anchoring the band’s droning rhythms with habitual abuse of a heavy floor tom.
Their energy was high, even in the face of a lukewarm audience, and Pike’s largely improvised solos were willfully atonal (he would occasional give us quizzical looks and point to his head after a particularly odd run), and if their set had been its normal length of approximately 45 minutes, it would have been fairly enjoyable. 90 minutes of it became rather monotonous, however, and by the time they wrapped up, we were glad to see them off. Most were appreciative of the effort, but few cheered with particular enthusiasm.
This came as no surprise, given the act to follow. Opeth is one of Sweden’s most renowned exports, and certainly the most illustrious since signing a global deal with Roadrunner Records. With their past two albums, ‘Ghost Reveries’ and now ‘Watershed’, the band has been transformed, figuratively and literally. In the first sense, Roadrunner’s press machine and distribution have capitalized on the Opeth mystique, once kept relatively in check by the underground, and have elevated it to wholesale reverence. Laudations such as ‘Swedish metal titans’, ‘unfettered geniuses’, and, of course, ‘greatest metal band ever’, have become the norm in constructing an air more appropriate for a religious institution than a rock ‘n’ roll band.
In the second sense, the transition from ‘Damnation’ to ‘Ghost Reveries’ marked a great shift in the band’s composition and intent. Each Opeth album is defined by new elements and invention, but with ‘Ghost Reveries’ came a palpable newness, arguably even an accessibility, that simply wasn’t present before. Around this same time, the band’s lineup changed considerably to leave Mikael Åkerfeldt as the only original member. It’s been accepted for years that Opeth is primarily Mikael’s baby, but the phrase ‘classic lineup’ exists for a reason and many fans were concerned when longtime members Peter Lindgren (guitar) and Martin Lopez (drums) left the band. Aside from Mikael, the only one to remain through all these changes is Martin Mendez, the gifted bassist who is often overlooked as an integral contributor to the band’s unique sound, and who now can enjoy the limelight of seniority over his newer brethren.
Opeth’s new blood is by no means untested, however. It takes exceptional talent to fill the emptied shoes, and Opeth’s selections are beyond reproach. Firstly, Per Wiberg (Spiritual Beggars) was made a permanent member around the time of ‘Ghost Reveries’, as Opeth’s sound has increasingly featured keyboards in recent years. For the recording of ‘Watershed’, the band’s lineup was made complete once again with the replacements for Peter and Martin. Stepping in on guitar was the relatively obscure Fredrik Åkesson, who played for Arch Enemy between recordings and in Krux, one of Sweden’s most star-studded doom/sludge outfits. On drums, Opeth now boast a polar opposite of the unknown Fredrik in the highly accomplished Martin Axenrot, who has played with such acts as Witchery, Nifelheim, Satanic Slaughter, and Bloodbath (where he and Mikael connected), all before his present age of 29. Although less a groove-drummer than Martin Lopez, who remains a fan favorite, Axe is one of Sweden’s foremost metal percussionists, and in Mikael’s words is, “just fucking retarded.”
So, understandably, the audience was fit to explode when the lights went down a half hour after High on Fire’s departure. From where I sat in the photo pit, I could hear some fans in the front row acting more like kids at a pop concert than metalheads: “Oh, my god! I can see him through the curtain, he’s standing right there,” and so forth. Then quite suddenly, the curtains were pulled back, and in the spotlight stood Mikael for us all to see. Flanking him were Fredrik and Mendez on right and left, while Per and Axe made up the back row on offset risers. Mikael flashed a smile at the audience, and then with little ado dropped straight into the lumbering discordance of ‘Heir Apparent’.
During those first three songs—‘Grand Conjuration’ and ‘Serenity Painted Death’ following—the band let the music speak for itself with hardly a break between songs. I don’t imagine that anyone complained about this, though, their music being so communicative on record, let alone in the live setting where it is even more dynamic. Opeth’s penchant for extremes—gentle interludes framed by brutal technicality—was emphasized here, with songs like ‘The Grand Conjuration’ benefiting particularly.
After ‘Serenity…’, we photographers were cleared out of the pit and Opeth settled into a more comfortable groove where the members’ individual stage attitudes began to show. Axe, Mendez, and Fredrik were all quite focused, rarely moving from their positions or showboating, while Per and Mikael played a strong contrast with their headbanging and more emotive displays.
And of course, leading them all on stage as he does in the studio, was Mikael, who is the most feted ‘rock star’ of all the extreme metal artists I have witnessed live. Waves of horns and cheers followed him from side to side, and at every jest, however rude, nearly the entire audience would laugh and cheer. At one point, he even convinced the majority of the standing floor to headbang without music, for the benefit of him and those on the balcony. He was at turns coy and frank, polite and playfully vulgar (calling us “a bunch of cunts” when we didn’t recognize a Whitesnake ditty on guitar), and always effacing. At one point, he sketched out the intro to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and mused after its timeless quality—‘How do you think it was, going up on the stage and playing that song that you knew was going to be legendary?’—and then introduced Opeth’s next track with, ‘Well, we’re just going to play you some more of this death metal shit, then.’ Which was certainly fine with us.
During the latter portion of the set, he would talk to the audience between almost every song, introducing band members, commenting on how funk music is a turn-off to Fredrik, and tossing out snippets of various songs. These included the aforementioned Whitesnake, the intro to ‘A Fair Judgment’, and the rough chord progression of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Friends’, which he acknowledged as the inspiration for ‘Demon of the Fall’. He followed this by saying, ‘But they ripped off a whole bunch of people as well, so, they can’t sue!’ and the audience was once again set to laughter and applause.
Aside from the band’s charisma, I also noted through the set how superbly balanced their sound was. Fredrik’s bold leads, Mikael’s melodic touch, Mendez’s sinuous bass, all intertwining with the support of Per’s keyboards and Axe’s meticulous percussion. Mikael in particular had a sweet tone and a wonderful touch, playing through Laney stacks (first professional artist I’ve seen use them since the Iommi sponsorship) and with an eye-catching array of PRS guitars.
When the band approached polyrhythms such as those at the climax of ‘Deliverance’ or the hypnotizing theme to close ‘The Night and the Silent Water’, they all seemed to move as one, even across the beat, gradually reaching a fever pitch and a sudden conclusion. A friend near the sound booth later mentioned that, throughout the set, the sound technician hardly moved. “That’s how great they are,” he said, referring to how the band could so effectively create their own dynamics without extra help from faders.
Beginning to end, their setlist ran: ‘Heir Apparent’, ‘The Grand Conjuration’, ‘Serenity Painted Death’, ‘Hope Leaves’, ‘The Lotus Eater’, ‘Bleak’, ‘The Night and the Silent Water’, ‘Deliverance’, ‘Demon of the Fall’, and an encore of ‘The Drapery Falls’, all wrapping up before 9:00 PM in about 90 minutes. Given how late shows tend to run it seemed impossible that the night’s entertainment was through so soon, but no other band could have left that audience more sated. Opeth were completely in control from beginning to end and thread adroitly through their discography, leaving fans from all eras with something to remember. Altogether, it was an inspiring performance quite unlike any other, and I now realize that any chance to see Opeth is a great chance. More the fool I for having missed them in the past.
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