I cleared the doors just in time to catch the end of opening band God Forbid's set. I usually head straight for the bar when I get to a show and as a result usually miss most of what goes on with the first one or two bands. This night was no exception. By the end of God Forbid's set I had 2 Sams and a pint of Guinness under my belt already. However with Valentine's new and improved remodeling job I was actually able to see the band from the bar. From what I witnessed this band is quite fucking good. I only caught the last five songs, but they did a great job helping the Guinness to inebriate my senses. God Forbid has the honor of being the first metal band I have seen in a few years that actually looks like a metal band, dirty, mean, and pissed off. Their frontman is a giant black guy with dreadlocks who fucking screams as loud as he can through every song. This is not the guy I would want to meet after the show or in a dark alley for that matter. He is a scary looking singer. Bonus points for that shit. I never really saw much of the other guys in the band because they were headbanging and jumping around on stage the whole time. All I saw was a giant blur of hair and the singer. This band plays more American style gutteral metal than the rest of the lineup this night. I keep thinking they must have misunderstood the ad when Opeth and Nevermore asked for a "black metal" band to open the show. Its alright though because God Forbid showed those fuckers how we play metal in the U.S. and I was impressed. Bonus points also for handing out free promo tapes at the door, I love when bands do that.

There was supposed to be another band before Opeth but something happened to them (maybe they got lost in Albany too and were murdered trying to find the club). It doesn't matter though because I have never heard of them and I was there to see Opeth anyway. Opeth is star wars geek music for metal fans. If you really know shit about metal and you take your music way too seriously, you are into Opeth at least a little bit. Myself, I have only heard a handful of their songs, but with each song lasting upwards of ten minutes that is the equivalent of a few albums for any other band. For my money they are pretty much the apex of Scandanavian metal, they are the standard by which I compare other bands. The music itself is prog rock mixed with goth/doom, death metal and black metal. The songs are epics lasting on average ten minutes, switching between styles at will with a heavy dose of atmospherics. They are the Pink Floyd of Scandanavian metal. Without a doubt one of the most talented and original bands playing today. One of the few bands I would drive 30 miles and walk five blocks through the ghetto for the chance to see in a club. Opeth took the stage at 9:00 and after some short greetings began with an old song. This first song wasn't really on, and that can be a problem when your songs are 10 minutes each. The vocals were too low in the mix and the song was too slow and depressing to start a show. Most of Opeth's songs are slow and depressing, but they should have started with something heavier. They met with mixed reaction on this one. I heard some jokes about Swedish meatballs among the crowd. Opeth fixed their shit and tore into a new song from Blackwater Park almost immediately. This time they were on, and all doubts in my mind were cleared at this point. The singer began with the fiercest gutteral bellowing that I have heard in a long time, then switched off to black metal style high end screaming, and then to clean vocals with an eerie amount of echo added for effect. The band was brutal in the opening sections, with some of the fastest drumming humanly possible. The guitarist was amazing in his ability to play the heavy shit and switch gears to atmospheric soloing and back again so many times during a song without missing a note. The next two songs were mostly the same. In between songs, the singer was short on words but was surprisingly polite and soft spoken for a guy who sounds so evil in the songs. The fourth was an older song which was mostly straight up death metal with a few slow sections. The crowd loved this one. By my third Guinness I was ready to mosh and tear the place apart, but there was none of that here. The majority of the crowd simply stood and watched the band play. There was a lot of headbanging going on which was cool and something I haven't seen since 1990. When you see a band like Opeth it is a good idea to just stand back and take it all in. Opeth actually made full use of lighting effects and even a fog machine. They actually had a fog machine. During the atmospheric sections, the stage would be black except for a single sliver of blue or red light on the singer or the guitarist with the smoke rolling in all around them. Words can't describe how cool this looked from the floor. Their fifth and final song was the one that I had heard before and easily the crowd favorite, Daemon Of The Fall off of My Arms, Your Hearse, the one the audience had been screaming for since the beginning of the set. This song was especially brutal in the beginning with the very deep gutteral vocals and heavy drumming that we all know and love. The end part was pure atmospherics with some of the darkest harmonic vocals I have ever heard, striaght doom metal with hints of progressive rock. Then they said goodbye and left. The end.

I was able to get the guitarist to sign an autograph as they came off stage. Then I decided to get out of there before Nevermore came on. Overall, I have to say that this was one of the better shows I have witnessed. This was the first time I've seen a Swedish metal band, and my expectations were high coming into the show. I've heard a lot of black metal and Scandanavian bands but this was my first chance to see one. Opeth definitely delivered on the hype and lived up to the reputation set by their peers. They definitely know what they're doing and they do it better than most other bands around today. Ten to 15 minute songs occasionally tend to get boring when played live, and at times it felt like a bit much, but I came to hear a band that plays epic 10 minute songs and that's definitely what I got. If you are a geek like I am and you take your music way too seriously, this is the band for you. If anyone ever tries to tell you that death metal is not art, take them to see Opeth perform live.