This guy in the crowd with one arm up and a yellow wrist band messed up a large number of my shots. He was center, front and had both arms up high most of the night.

A few songs I was a bit surprised that didn’t make it into the setlist were Deliverance, Baying of the Hounds, and The Drapery Falls–all three of which Opeth played the three previous times I have seen them. I was really happy they did Demon of the Fall. The full setlist is in my prior entry.

Opeth members took a deep bow after the photo below. I have a picture of the deep bow too, but you can’t even see the band members in it as they bowed so low they were below the crowd.

At long last, I present for you the full video for The Lotus Eater from the Watershed CD. There are a couple of things worth mentioning before viewing.

The first is that the LX3 can take great video (even in poor lighting conditions by someone who is very tired and in a state of constant jostlement by those around him). I seriously doubt there is a camera, that can be easily brought into concerts, that can take better photographs and video. Be sure to set the LX3 to HD mode and 16:9 viewing. Also, don’t be afraid to zoom into the digital mode on an LX3. I believe the non-digital mode only goes to 2.5X. The video below is at about 5X and the results are pretty good. Since you can’t change the zoom once the video begins be sure to get to 5X (or something closer to the maximum of 10X if you are farther away) before starting the recording.

The second thing to note is Per Wiberg, the keyboardist, at around minute 3. He moves his microphone out of the way to prepare to headbang which I find very amusing.

Enjoy!

Posted on May 18th, 2009 under Other. Tags: metal, opeth, video. Comments: 1

The Opeth posts continue today with more images from the Chico show. I apologize to those of you who couldn’t care less about Opeth and promise that tomorrow will be the final installment before returning you to your regularly scheduled program.

Mikael had his normal, hilarious comments between songs on this evening. I can’t do them justice here, but I will mention a few just to bring a smile to the faces of those who were there and happen to be reading this.

He mentioned it being their first time in Chico and how he understood Chico to be a “party town.” (We found this to be true as well as both bars we went to were packed all afternoon on a Wednesday when school was in session. The campus seemed much less active than the pubs.) Mikael said he was induced to drink a pint during the afternoon, and then a quart, but it had all worn off by show time, he thought.

Someone in the crowd said something about meatballs so Mikael responded with a discussion on Swedish Meatballs and how to cook them. (I was particularly amused as my son still talks about how wonderful the Swedish Meatballs were that he had in Gotenberg, Sweden last summer.) He then got really sidetracked and ended up giving a full recipe and cooking techniques for making some sort of fish that is bound to please your significant other.

Mikael also knew that people from Chico wouldn’t be huge fans of Los Angeles so, to get the crowd going, he said something about receiving a fax from Los Angeles before coming on stage that said Chico’s fans sucked, couldn’t make a lot of noise, or something to that effect. Of course, everyone went nuts at this suggestion, and Mikael replied that he will have to fax LA back to let them know they are wrong.

Another one that comes to mind is before the encore. The band is gone for a really long time before coming back. Mikael runs to the mic and apologizes for taking so long. It wasn’t because we weren’t loud enough; it was because he had to wait in line to take a leak. Then, when he introduces Martin Axenrot, the drummer, he said that Martin probably didn’t even wash his hands after pissing at the break, but he’s still going to play anyway.

Fredrik, shown above and below, performed a guitar solo. It was a bit strange as it wasn’t part of a song. The solo was more of the old school variety where the singer, Mikael in this case, merely announces that it’s time for a guitar solo. Fredrik plays it and it didn’t turn into the intro of the next song.

What I thought was funny was something I noticed when I looked at my pictures. I took about a dozen photos from the beginning to the end of the solo, and in every one the security guy is watching the solo rather than doing his job. I don’t have any other pictures from the show in which security is watching the band. Apparently this guy in the red shirt is a fan of guitar solos.

Here is the aforementioned Martin “Axe” Axenrot, the drummer who doesn’t wash his hands after going to the bathroom. It doesn’t seem to have affected his love life however. He is dating the very beautiful, Nathalie Lorichs, who, unfortunately, was not on stage like Wayne Static’s wife was the week before.

Posted on May 17th, 2009 under Other. Tags: metal, opeth. Comments Off on Opeth, part 3

The venue in Chico (Senator Theatre) is very decent. There are seats until you get to about 20 feet from the stage. At that point there is a railing and then an open area near the stage for moshing. The seating is nice for a rest before and between bands, and the railing is nice for standing right behind if want to be close without getting pummeled by the moshers. I stood right behind the railing all night. Some of my pictures look like they are from farther back, but that is just the wide-angle lens on my LX3.

The crowd wasn’t very large. They could have easily fit more than a hundred people more on the floor, and the balcony wasn’t even open. Had Opeth played in Medford, instead of Chico, I bet they would have sold twice as many tickets. Small crowds are fine by me though. The smaller the better in fact. One of the reasons we made the Chico road trip to see Opeth, instead of one to Portland or San Francisco, was the anticipated smaller crowd.

Between a couple of mellower numbers the crowd was very quiet. Mikael walks up to the microphone and says in a perfect Roger Water’s whisper voice, “Is there anybody out there?”

Watershed is the CD the current tour is based on, but, to be perfectly honest, it wouldn’t crack the top five if I were asked to rank Opeth’s CDs. Not that I hate Watershed. It is still one of the best releases of 2008 and would probably make my Top 30 best CDs ever. It just isn’t as good as Opeth’s other masterpieces (like, say, Blackwater Park or Ghost Reveries).

As previously mentioned, I did do some more experimentation with video and found that the LX3 isn’t as inept as I thought after hearing what it produced at the Static-X show last week. The following is the first that I took. It was the first time Mikael spoke to the crowd during the evening.

“The name of this band is Opeth.” Sorry for the tease that the above video is. Stay tuned for a full video of The Lotus Eater in a future blog entry.

Posted on May 16th, 2009 under Other. Tags: metal, opeth. Comments Off on Opeth, part 2

Opeth played at the Senator Theatre in Chico, California on May 13, 2009 on the Watershed tour. This was actually the second time I saw Opeth on this tour as I saw them at the Paramount Theater a year before in Oakland (about a month before Watershed officially came out). They opened for Dream Theater on that night and didn’t have a very long setlist so it was good to see them again, as the headliner this time.

That moment before a band hits the stage when the house lights go down, the laser lights kick on, and the intro begins is always a special one.

Opeth appear to have invested in a bunch of new laser lighting. It was almost too much at times for the size of the stage, but cool anyway. I think they had more of such lighting than even Rush.

I have dozens of decent photos from the show. I suppose I could turn Opeth into a week or two worth of daily blog entries, but I will try to control that urge and cram everything into five or fewer entries.

Mikael Åkerfeldt is the driving force behind Opeth. He is the only member still around from the outset of the band, has written most of the music, does the lead vocals, and plays lead guitar. He is also fun to listen to between songs. I would pay to see him do nothing but a stand-up comedy routine.

On the right of the above picture is Fredrik Åkesson, Opeth’s newest addition. This was about the only moment of the entire evening that he was on this side of the stage.

Usually this spot on the stage was manned by bassist Martin Mendez as shown in the above photograph.

I’ll have much more for you in the next few days including a couple of videos.

The setlist went something like this:
Heir Apparent
Ghost Of Perdition
Godhead’s Lament
Wreath
Credence
Hessian Peel
Closure
The Night and the Silent Water
The Lotus Eater
Demon of the Fall

Posted on May 15th, 2009 under Other. Tags: metal, opeth. Comments: 1

Yesterday I took a road trip down to Chico, California to see Enslaved and Opeth at the Senator Theatre. After my Static-X experience of poor audio quality on the video I took with my LX3 I planned to take only stills at this show. I did actually do a video experiment and it turned out great. I’ll show the Opeth video to you in a few days. So maybe the LX3 is OK for video afterall. Had I known, I would have taken far more video.

The lighting for Enslaved was really poor so the photographs are not the greatest. I have some much better ones of Opeth that I will show you over the next few days.

Enslaved is from Norway. Their last couple of CDs (Vertebrae and Ruun) are very good. Their music is very complex, yet melodic. If you like Opeth, Katatonia, Anathema, or Dimmu Borgir, but haven’t given Enslaved a listening then you should. They are the type of band that you may not love on the first listening, but after several times through their CDs you find yourself discovering more and liking their sound more with each listening. This is much better than bands you like right off the bat but then find yourself bored with after many listenings.

The setlist was something like this:
To The Coast
Ruun
Fusion Of Sense And Earth
Ground
As Fire Swept Clean The Earth
The Watcher
Isa

Posted on May 14th, 2009 under Other. Tags: enslaved, metal. Comments Off on Enslaved