Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas Tour
If you aren't aware of how metal concerts work here in Portugal, well let me break it up to you right out of the bat:
- We only get mostly mainstream bands here
- We have festivals that are backed by large companies that use the fests to promote themselves
- Here in Portugal people are mostly Thrashers and Deathmetal heads, therefore the Black Metal scene here is pretty slim.
So when we have the True Mayhem visit twice on the same year our small patch of land near the Atlantic, then this is "godsend".
We have a major festiva here that is more "Underground" called SWR Barroselas. It is a festival that I go quite often since it attends to my musical taste. It has a great atmosphere and aura to it, since it happens in the middle of a forest in the northest reaches of Portugal. Makes sense that Mayhem would come here to celebrate it's 20th edition, even though they had their name mentioned before in previous editions of the festival where they "could not make it".
There were some people that were highly sceptical about this, and others, like me, bough the ticket just to see them live. Was the first time I would see the masters of the art execute their most polemic album ever: Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.
From suicides to murder, and some church burnings in between, this is their most iconic album. Abeit for the only album where both Euronimous and Varg Vikernes play in the same record as members of a band, and not some brief "cameos", the first appearance of Attila whom was both loved and hated by the fans for either being highly experimental with his vocal approach, or even by the fack he wasn't Norwegian in the first place (hell, Dead was Swede, but hey). This album is where the band conquered their hardships and actually manage to record it.
But back to the tour itself. People who love the music genre know well the name Mayhem, and they aren't strangers to stage acts. But this celebration of The Mysteriis is quite something.
There was a lot of Black Metal acts in SWR Barroselas. From Marthyrium to Pillorian, Inquisition and Cobalt, to many others, Mayhem was at the top, and expectations were high as hell.
But they delivered.
First things first, I just adore the sound technicians involved in this festival. They know their stuff, and even though the bands bring their own teams along, the local team is quite profissional. Even in the smaller stages, they get right the sound. It isn't just distortion and noise with hints of music to the ones that are familiar to the songs, you can actually get a grasp of what's goin on, and maintaining the atmosphere the music requires when needed. In Mayhem's case, it was almost like I was listening to the album itself. The sound, specially the drums, were on point. Hellhammer is still the machinegun he was 20 years ago, and Attila's voice live is something phenomenal. I give merit to both Dead and Maniac, but hating on Attila is just wrong. He uses his voice like a complex musical instrument.
It was a gig that was engraved in my memory as one of the best.
I said that they came here two times up there, in the beginning. The second act was yesterday (12 of October), and well... You may be a top musician, but if your sound engineer doesn't match, he can jeopardize any gig, no matter how good you are. And that has happened yesterday.
The spot was "Lisboa ao Vivo". It is a recent bar/concert hall/studio in Lisbon, where they actually have great acoustics. My band, Daemon Forest, we rehearsed there and I can attend to the sound's quality. The first band, the Omnimous Circle, they sounded both cristal clear and muddy, but that is typical to their sound. Was a great gig. Then came Dragged into Sunlight, where they almost blew our eardrums at the start. Someone was "high gain" happy and eventually toned down the fader to bearable levels. In Mayhem's case was the worse. For almost half the concert, we could not listen properly to Attila. Funeral Fog was just instrumental almost, and I felt I was listening to "From the Darkest Past" for a moment. Then Attila screamed. People rejoice we could listen to him finally, but most of the times, the guitars would overpower the vocals. Guitar tune sounded fine, but quite different than what we get in the album. What happened yesterday was a bad sound technician at the Digital Mixer. They had two Behringer X32, one to The opener bands, and other dedicated solely for Mayhem. I study sound engineering, and I understand that sometimes it is easier just to have a Mixer pre-programmed for a band, where they fiddle with the knobs and faders, and measure the signal leves, according to the spot, mics used, and so on. So, what the hell happened? Equipment failure? Took them half a gig to understand where the fault was? Did Attila grabbed on the wrong microphone? We all gotta assume that soundchecks are for that, for signal level management, testing equipment, and set these values before the show starts, to avoid these things. We have great sound engineers in Portugal, but they focus their work on the remaining genres, leaving the Metal concerts in small venues and stuff managed by less skilled tech guys.
Unfortunately I had to leave mid gig, since the public transport network in Lisbon stops around 00h45, and when I left, I felt that I wasn't loosing much. And that was a Mayhem gig. Never crossed my mind, really. But well, I had one great experience in SWR Barroselas, and yesterday's poor execution will not be as memorable.
I can only say good things about Lisboa ao Vivo. When we played there, they were under construction, building the venue and stuff. They have two small studios there, and the birth of Daemon Forest was also there, so it is poetic that Mayhem has came to our cradle and preformed here. The downside here was purely technical, I don't even know if the "sound guy" was employed by the place, or the band, or was outsourced, but these things happen all the time in Portugal, and as a sound technician who can understand what's going on, I can't understand how they let these things slide. These are mistakes that repeat themselves too many times. We really need to step up the sound engineers here in Portugal, at least the ones who handle Metal concerts.
Regarding Mayhem, I am loving the whole concept behind this tour. And it is funny how they, and Emperor are taking Europe by storm, and reminding us that the Norwegian Black Metal scene is still strong, though some other bands (cof cof... Satyricon and Ulver) have shifted their musical sights.
Related links:
http://www.swr-fest.com/news
https://www.thetruemayhem.com
https://www.facebook.com/mayhemofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/LAVLisboaAoVivo/
- We only get mostly mainstream bands here
- We have festivals that are backed by large companies that use the fests to promote themselves
- Here in Portugal people are mostly Thrashers and Deathmetal heads, therefore the Black Metal scene here is pretty slim.
So when we have the True Mayhem visit twice on the same year our small patch of land near the Atlantic, then this is "godsend".
We have a major festiva here that is more "Underground" called SWR Barroselas. It is a festival that I go quite often since it attends to my musical taste. It has a great atmosphere and aura to it, since it happens in the middle of a forest in the northest reaches of Portugal. Makes sense that Mayhem would come here to celebrate it's 20th edition, even though they had their name mentioned before in previous editions of the festival where they "could not make it".
There were some people that were highly sceptical about this, and others, like me, bough the ticket just to see them live. Was the first time I would see the masters of the art execute their most polemic album ever: Mysteriis Dom Sathanas.
From suicides to murder, and some church burnings in between, this is their most iconic album. Abeit for the only album where both Euronimous and Varg Vikernes play in the same record as members of a band, and not some brief "cameos", the first appearance of Attila whom was both loved and hated by the fans for either being highly experimental with his vocal approach, or even by the fack he wasn't Norwegian in the first place (hell, Dead was Swede, but hey). This album is where the band conquered their hardships and actually manage to record it.
But back to the tour itself. People who love the music genre know well the name Mayhem, and they aren't strangers to stage acts. But this celebration of The Mysteriis is quite something.
There was a lot of Black Metal acts in SWR Barroselas. From Marthyrium to Pillorian, Inquisition and Cobalt, to many others, Mayhem was at the top, and expectations were high as hell.
But they delivered.
First things first, I just adore the sound technicians involved in this festival. They know their stuff, and even though the bands bring their own teams along, the local team is quite profissional. Even in the smaller stages, they get right the sound. It isn't just distortion and noise with hints of music to the ones that are familiar to the songs, you can actually get a grasp of what's goin on, and maintaining the atmosphere the music requires when needed. In Mayhem's case, it was almost like I was listening to the album itself. The sound, specially the drums, were on point. Hellhammer is still the machinegun he was 20 years ago, and Attila's voice live is something phenomenal. I give merit to both Dead and Maniac, but hating on Attila is just wrong. He uses his voice like a complex musical instrument.
It was a gig that was engraved in my memory as one of the best.
I said that they came here two times up there, in the beginning. The second act was yesterday (12 of October), and well... You may be a top musician, but if your sound engineer doesn't match, he can jeopardize any gig, no matter how good you are. And that has happened yesterday.
The spot was "Lisboa ao Vivo". It is a recent bar/concert hall/studio in Lisbon, where they actually have great acoustics. My band, Daemon Forest, we rehearsed there and I can attend to the sound's quality. The first band, the Omnimous Circle, they sounded both cristal clear and muddy, but that is typical to their sound. Was a great gig. Then came Dragged into Sunlight, where they almost blew our eardrums at the start. Someone was "high gain" happy and eventually toned down the fader to bearable levels. In Mayhem's case was the worse. For almost half the concert, we could not listen properly to Attila. Funeral Fog was just instrumental almost, and I felt I was listening to "From the Darkest Past" for a moment. Then Attila screamed. People rejoice we could listen to him finally, but most of the times, the guitars would overpower the vocals. Guitar tune sounded fine, but quite different than what we get in the album. What happened yesterday was a bad sound technician at the Digital Mixer. They had two Behringer X32, one to The opener bands, and other dedicated solely for Mayhem. I study sound engineering, and I understand that sometimes it is easier just to have a Mixer pre-programmed for a band, where they fiddle with the knobs and faders, and measure the signal leves, according to the spot, mics used, and so on. So, what the hell happened? Equipment failure? Took them half a gig to understand where the fault was? Did Attila grabbed on the wrong microphone? We all gotta assume that soundchecks are for that, for signal level management, testing equipment, and set these values before the show starts, to avoid these things. We have great sound engineers in Portugal, but they focus their work on the remaining genres, leaving the Metal concerts in small venues and stuff managed by less skilled tech guys.
Unfortunately I had to leave mid gig, since the public transport network in Lisbon stops around 00h45, and when I left, I felt that I wasn't loosing much. And that was a Mayhem gig. Never crossed my mind, really. But well, I had one great experience in SWR Barroselas, and yesterday's poor execution will not be as memorable.
I can only say good things about Lisboa ao Vivo. When we played there, they were under construction, building the venue and stuff. They have two small studios there, and the birth of Daemon Forest was also there, so it is poetic that Mayhem has came to our cradle and preformed here. The downside here was purely technical, I don't even know if the "sound guy" was employed by the place, or the band, or was outsourced, but these things happen all the time in Portugal, and as a sound technician who can understand what's going on, I can't understand how they let these things slide. These are mistakes that repeat themselves too many times. We really need to step up the sound engineers here in Portugal, at least the ones who handle Metal concerts.
Regarding Mayhem, I am loving the whole concept behind this tour. And it is funny how they, and Emperor are taking Europe by storm, and reminding us that the Norwegian Black Metal scene is still strong, though some other bands (cof cof... Satyricon and Ulver) have shifted their musical sights.
Related links:
http://www.swr-fest.com/news
https://www.thetruemayhem.com
https://www.facebook.com/mayhemofficial/
https://www.facebook.com/LAVLisboaAoVivo/
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