Today's blog will be about the recent trip to London to see Edguy at the o2 Academy Islington.
The journey up to the capital was slightly hampered due to a gas leak in the Baffins area on Friday night. This meant no trains were entering the city and so myself and Mike had to take a short trip to Havant in which to board the train. Once in London, we flew around on the underground so that Mike could find a couple of venues for the Cancer Bats gigs he is attending soon. We then settled in Islington to watch the Scotland v England 6 nations game and then headed into the venue.
Due to the timing of the ruggers match we thought we would miss the 1st support act, Primitai. In fact we managed to catch their last 2 songs. Mike had said beforehand that they were good. I agree with this statement. It would have been nice to catch a little more of their set and if I get a chance to see them again, I will.
The 2nd support were a band called Voodoo Six. They were extremely good, their riffs were incredibly catchy and the vocals were very clean. They kept the audience captivated through their half hour set and certainly warmed the incoming crowd from the snowy conditions outside. In the same instance as Primitai, given the opportunity I would definitely see V6 again.
In the summer I went to Wacken festival and saw a show by Avantasia, this is Tobias Sammets side project. His band however are Edguy. We were shown the video to their latest single 'Robin Hood' whilst awaiting Avantasia to come on stage and it was an awesome song. Myself and Mike both said that Edguy were a band that had to be seen. So when they announced their Age of the Joker tour was coming to England, we jumped at the chance to get tickets.
They showed their intent for the evening by blasting through Nobody's Hero to begin the set. Tobias greeted Lon-Don as he pronounced it and quickly had the crowd cheering and laughing.
I will say it right now, Tobi is the greatest frontman of our time! He was funny and kept the crowd engaged and participating in songs. He quickly realised Londoners dislike for the North and Midlands. When he spoke about their previous 2 shows in Manchester and Birmingham there was a chorus of boos. Adding later that a song could be sung by donkeys, it could even be sung by people from Manchester.
The second song of the night was another off of the new album. The Arcane Guild, I really enjoy this song and it is fast becoming a personal favourite of mine. They then moved to an older album and played Tears of a Mandrake. This song really got the crowd involved and it was inescapable not to move during the song or indeed the entire set. You could see the whole band were really happy to be back in the UK which they had promised on their previous visit. Tobias got another laugh when he said that they had promised to go back to Leeds, which got booed as did Glasgow. And then a cheer went up when he said that they weren't going back there.
Another boo echoed around the crowd when Tobi was introducing the next song which was written about Ireland. He calmed the crowd by asking them to like the island for just 5 minutes. Rock the Cashel is a fantastic song and certainly reminded me of Ireland with some incredible guitar playing resembling a jig. They then played one of my favourite Edguy songs, Lavatory Love Machine. It is one of the craziest songs ever and I'd hate to think what Tobi was on when he wrote it. It features a lot of innuendos and is about Tobias sitting in an aeroplane headed for Brazil that is going to crash and him having sex in the toilet with the stewardess......Yeah, exactly! Nevertheless it is an absolutely incredicle song and showcases the range of sounds this German metal band can produce.
They then played Robin Hood and it was just as good live as it was the first time I saw it in the premiere of the video during Wacken. Next up was supposed to be a drum solo that Mike had told me was apparently incredible to see and hear. However, Tobi had other ideas, because the Islington Academy has a strict 10PM curfew they had to cut out the solo in favour of "a real song, you know, one with vocals", greeted with more laughs. Therefore, Ministry of Saints ripped through the venue with its extremely heavy riff getting every head nodding from the opening bars to the closing notes.
He then told the crowd they were going to slow things down and play a ballad, this was met with a few lighthearted boos until he said the title of the track, Save Me. This was greeted with massive cheers and a few lighters were held in the air, which Tobi encouraged anything light or reflective to be held up. This song is a fantastic, emotional, hard hitting song and proves that Tobias is probably one of the best vocalists ever, but certainly of my era.
After the slow pace of the ballad, Edguy decided to fly directly to the other end of the scale and showcase their amazing talent as a power metal band with Babylon. This is a fast paced song that can only be described as absolute power metal. With a short break in the middle to get the crowd chanting and doing the usual "splitting the crowd for a shout off." Tobias makes this slightly more different by telling each side to shut up when it's not their turn.
This was followed with Superheroes, which I'd have to say is my all time favourite Edguy song. I was starting to get a little sad at this point though as I knew there would only be a few more songs. This, however, didn't stop myself or the crowd or, from the looks of it, the band enjoying every secong and note that was passing.
The band then left the stage and the chants of 'Edguy' began, Mike and I moved to the back and passed a couple of idiots. I call them idiots as instead of chanting the bands name, they were chanting 'one more song'. This really irritates me, as nowadays, bands always play an encore. Not only is it practically an unwritten rule. The house lights are still off with only a couple of coloured spotlights centred on the stage. That means the band will be back!
Anyway, rant over and shockingly Edguy re-emerged onto the stage and flew in Vain Glory Opera, I thought this song would be saved until the last song of the evening but instead it opened their encore and had everyone moving, clapping and singing again. Unfortunately, the next song was the last one of the set, introduced with Tobias promising that Edguy will return to England and more importantly they will return to London. The final song was King of Fools, a very dark and strongly riffed song. Including the opening lyric, "What do you think when you piss in my face." It's a really strong song to finish on and I left the extremely happy that I had seen as awesome a band as Edguy.
Unfortunately, Tobias is not doing anymore with Avantasia. But as long as Edguy are still making new material and touring then he will be entertaining people worldwide for years to come.
I will definately see this band again, someday somehow.
We left the venue to find that the snow was still coming down quite heavily and was beginning to settle. This was slightly concerning as British public transport are never prepared for, well, anything. But we had no trouble jumping on the next train back to rainy Portsmouth and that concluded an extremely enjoyable day in London and the viewing of an incredible band.
