When the lights are down
There is an air of anticipation as a fanfare begins to herald in Kamelot to ProgPower, the lights go down and the audience cheers merely from seeing the rather fantastic backdrop of the stage which is a superb piece of artwork taken rom their imminent new album.
Suddenly it's go go go and they are on, blasting straight into 'When the lights are down' one of the fastest songs from the 'Black Halo' album, at first I thought the sound was spot on but soon realised the keyboards were nowhere to be found in the mix, as had happened throughout the day this was rectified within half a song and everything seemed perfect.
Unfortunately there was still one other problem, there was a nice young lady backing singer whose mouth was moving but nothing was coming out, she was completely inaudible even when she stepped to the front of the stage to deliver a bit on her own. I felt quite sorry for her until 'Abandoned'. The ballad arrived where she has a major part to play, then thank god her voice suddenly appeared right on cue and stayed around for the rest of the set. Phew.
They flew through 'Soul Society' and into a song from their new album called 'Mourning Star' judging by this the new album is going to be great. Then on to 'Centre of the Universe' from epica. The time just shot by like an express train as singer Khan easily mastered the stage whilst getting the crowd to sing along and genius musicianship from the guys showed Kamelot to be the utter professionals everyone expected.
The crowd cheered madly between every song and Kamelot could just as easily have headlined the event as Jon Oliva. This takes nothing away from Jon though as he was brilliant so the day had a double header really.
Another new song in the form of 'Ghost Opera' which is the title track from the new album whetted everyone's appetite for the new stuff before playing Karma and then they were off..... and then they were back to nail 'March of Mephisto' and leave the audience breathless and happy.
Kamelot deserve to be a world force on the strength of their back catalogue and performances like this, if 'Ghost Opera' can stand up against the massive achievement that is 'The Black Halo' when it's released in June they just might be
Khan did mention that Kamelot would be back in the UK in October, please don't let it be a one off gig in the middle of London because judging from tonight there's a lot of fans out there.