Live review and pics: Ellie Blackman
Additional content and pics: Adrian Hextall
[Adrian] Heading to The Underworld for your first gig to cover for the site is equally daunting and enjoyable. The venue is a nice size when you’re not familiar with what’s needed to cover a concert both from a photography perspective as well as what to note down when the bands are playing. My newest colleague Ellie gets to cut her chops on the rather fantastic Serious Black, touring on the back of their phenomenal ‘Magic’ album. With support from ex-Accept guitarist Herman Frank and My Own Ghost, a good night of metal was guaranteed. It’s a shame no one had managed to tell the punters that there was a gig on but what mattered was that we were there to be able to see the bands perform.
Offering her take on three bands she was unfamiliar with was never going to be easy but it’s best to embrace new music as early as possible so with Ellie still open to fresh acts both old and new, the evening was set to be pretty interesting.
My Own Ghost & Herman Frank
With new album ‘Life on Standby’ now out for a few months, Luxembourg based band My Own Ghost made for an ideal opening act. Julie Rodesch has a great voice on her and the interplay between her and guitarist David Soppelsa ensured that the opening set got the (sadly) small crowd warmed up nicely.
Herman Frank is of course known to many, both for his solo work and his time with Accept. One thing that is guaranteed with a Herman Frank show is energy and that he delivered in spades. His disappointment at the numbers present was audible yet even with a shake of the head and an ‘oh my god..’ he turned everything up to 11 and his touring band which includes Masterplan / At Vance vocalist Rick Altzi did what every professional musician needs to do when faced with an audience of 10 or 10,000, they played the show like it was going to be their last. An exercise in solid German metal Rick and Herman work so well together. There’s clearly a lot of enjoyment had on stage and the crowd that was there soaked it up and cheered their appreciation for the band.
[Ellie] The vocals for both Herman Frank and My Own Ghost were incredible and I loved both of their performances. I was fortunate enough to, before the show, also be present when Herman Frank was being interviewed by Adrian [CLICK HERE] and the band are very down to earth and love to play their music as they look to make more in the future. They had only performed 5 shows in total with this line up so there was a certain enthusiastic energy about them on stage in London. After the show, they were heading back to Europe to continue their tour.
Serious Black
When initially going to see Serious Black, I was a little hesitant as I previously had not listened to a lot of their music. But, what an amazing performance, they reached my expectations and exceeded them. On stage they had an amazing presence, you could feel the raw emotion in Urban’s voice when he sang. Throughout their set you could see how much the whole band enjoy being on stage. Urban was dressed similarly to how he is in the Serious Black Magic music video, which really brought the story line behind the new album to life on the stage.
Just before the show I was lucky enough to be present when Urban was being interviewed [CLICK HERE] , he explained what he based their new album ‘Magic” on, he told us that underneath the theatrics and extravagant story about the Witch and Mr. Nightmist. The underlining story is about the love Mr. Nightmist had for the Witch and eventually giving her up as she was no longer who she used to be. Urban had framed the touching story with mystery and fantasy, the story started with the song ‘With a Tip of a hat’ and then finishing with ‘One Final song’. Throughout the album you experienced the curse, the love, the despair and the desperation. I found Urban very interesting throughout the interview very inspiring and interesting as you could see the passion he held for the album when he spoke about it.
This was very much noticeable in their performance, as they played a range of their previous albums and a few songs from ‘Magic’. My personal favourite was ‘Burn Witches Burn’ I loved the story line to this one as I found it rather interesting that the meaning of the song so strongly contrasted with the upbeat rhythm of the song. Overall, Serious Black were an amazing band to see in concert and they really knew how to get the crowd involved, although it was a small venue and not many were present for the concert I agree when Urban said “The people who matter are here!”.
- Set list:
1: Akhenaton
2: Older and Wiser
3: Mr. Nightmist
4: Mirrorworld
5: Trail of Murder
6: I Can Do Magic
7: Heartbroken Soul
8: Serious Black Magic
9: The Life That You Want
10: Castor Skies
11: Lone Gunman Rules
12: This Machine Is Broken
13: Now You’ll Never Know
14: As Long as I’m Alive
15: Setting Fire to The Earth
16: Burn Witches Burn
17: I Seek No Other Life
18: High and Low
Line up:
Urban Breed (Singer)
Jan Vicik (Keyboard)
Dominik Sebastian (Guitar)
Christian Munzner (Guitar)
Mario Lochert (Bass)
Thomen Stauch (Drums)
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