Quality melodic death
Blimey I've been looking forward to this, every time Dark Tranquillity come anywhere near where I live, something comes up that stops me from getting there, so there are no excuses this time other than them not turning up at all. Well they did turn up, which is lucky or this would have been a very short review.
Nevermore have just been on and the crowd is so fired up that even the slightest push will make it explode into a frenzy of arms and legs, so it comes as no surprise that when you get a band that plays scorching melodic death metal on stage everyone is well up for it. It's eight thirty in the evening and there's enough light to see who you're running into so the mosh pit opens the crowd right down the middle almost from front to back. Aside from the usual mindless jumping into each other that normally goes on, this pit also has folk organising themselves into two halves before linking arms and charging into each other, much to the amusement of the rest of the crowd and the consternation of the first aid tent.
Dark Tranquillity have superb sound which is filled out to the edges by their brand of keyboard laden metal, they have a style not unlike an out of control truck that has just run you over, it's hard to explain just how full a sound they have, they're also tight as a gnats bum and polished like a very slick shiny thing (sorry, ran out of analogies).
Mikael Stanne, the singer, is a great frontman and his fairly unique voice carries well in the live arena, he's also a man that likes to get up close to the crowd jumping off the stage a few times to shout in peoples faces and press some flesh, I've seen pictures of this guy held up by the audience as he sings the song, lying across upraised hands. He didn't go that far this time but you could see he likes to meet the fans as it were.
By the end there was no doubt we'd seen a class act and everyone I saw had obviously enjoyed themselves, for me they were the band of the day, Nevermore and DT had fired the crowd up so much that Lacuna Coils headlining set was like a come down afterwards. They're on tour later this year so check em out if you couldn't get to Bloodstock.