Concerts I've seen

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Remarkably, this was the first time Fury had played at The Underworld. A very different set list from them tonight. Only one track from the latest album "Born to sin" and instead a selection of older tracks from previous albums. Which suits me. As much as I love the last album and believe it to be their strongest release yet, it was good to hear some of the older songs again. As you'd expect from Fury, the performance was once again excellent.

Another year, another Firewind singer. This time it's Herbie Langhans, who I'd only really previously encountered as one of the guest singers in Avantasia. I'll admit to being somewhat disappointed by this change, as Henning Basse was easily my favourite Firewind singer to date, and I'd hoped they might have stuck with him, but it wasn't to be. In truth, Langhans was actually pretty good. Perhaps not quite as strong vocally as Basse, but he handled the material well. Unsurprisingly, Gus G's guitar work was fantastic. The main set was good, but they'd saved the best until last, and closing the show with the trio of "Maniac", "Ode to Leonidas" and "Falling to pieces" was a noticable step up from the songs they'd played before that point.

It might be 40 years after the fact, but it turns out that I could remember more Howard Jones songs than I expected, with only a single song from the setlist being unfamiliar. Overall, it was quite a decent performance. Howard's voice is still strong and he does justice to the material. Of his own songs, my highlights were "New song" and "What is love". But when the band took to the stage, I spied what appeared to be the familiar look of Nick Beggs on bass and sure enough it was indeed him. Which led to another highlight, a cover of Kajagoogoo's "Too shy".

OMD are inexplicably popular. In the '80s they had a modest amount of success with several UK top 10 singles and a smattering of gold and platinum albums. But you probably can't name more than a couple. Compare that with one of my favourite bands, Ultravox, who also had a similar amount of top 10 singles and a selection of gold and platinum albums. Yet here we are many decades later and Ultravox's reunion shows were moderately successful, playing to a few thousand people at venues like Hammersmith Odeon and The Roundhouse. But OMD are playing at the UK's second biggest indoor venue, the O2 Arena. I don't really understand it, but I do like the band so I bought a ticket for this show. In truth, there was a decent amount of nostalgia, but it wasn't the best show in the world. The good songs were good. I particularly enjoyed "Maid of Orleans", "Enola Gay" and "Electricity". But the rest of the set was full of filler that just didn't really do much for me.

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I wasn't even aware that there was due to be a fourth band on the bill until I arrived at the venue. Terra Atlantica turned out to be a decent enough melodic metal band. I've since seen them described as power metal, but they don't really fall into that camp for me. They were musically proficient, but in need of a bit more bite and aggressiveness. They were just a bit too bland. In some ways they reminded me of Visions Of Atlantis in that respect (a band with whom they also share a pirate themed visual aesthetic).

In constrast, I had known about Tulip playing beforehand - but only just, finding out a handful of days before the show. They're formerly a Christian band, but seem to have toned down (or possibly abandoned altogether) that side of things. Musically, they're melodic metal with perhaps a slight alternative metal leaning. Former opera singer Ashleigh Semkiw unsurprisingly handles the lead vocals well. The performance was OK, but I think they were let down a little by the songwriting. Also notable was the lack of a live bass player, with those parts being on backing tape.

I've liked Temperance since I first saw them many years ago with the original lineup. In 2013, the band saw a wholesale lineup change with only Marco and Liuk remaining. Ten years later, Marco decided to do the same again, and this was the first time I'd seen them with the new lineup. Let's start with the vocals. Kirstin Starkey is the best vocalist they've had to date, handling both the rock vocals and the operatic vocals with ease, and was great paired with Michele's male vocals. The only real downside for me was the setlist, with nothing at all being played from the first three albums.

Marco is a busy guy. Not only is he focussed on Temperance and his many side projects, he's now also joined Serenity as well. With Chris busy with Beyond The Black and unable to make this tour, Marco was taking over the lead guitar duties. Georg's voice was as strong as ever and the band were once again a strong live act, and once again included a short acoustic section to show that they were performing the songs live. One of those songs was "Broken dreams" from Marco and Georg's side project "Fallen sanctuary". Highlights for me were "Ritter, tod und teufel", "Velatum", "Legacy of tudors" and a set closing "Lionheart". Once again, "Coldness kills" was a strange omission. It's been many years since I last saw them playing it live.