GIG: Amaranthe (Manchester)

No sooner had the words 'We're never going to Manchester for a gig again' left our lips than Amaranthe announced three UK dates including one in Manchester... literally two days after the ABBA Voyage. Brilliant. So there was no way we were going back to London, and Bristol is a pain in the arse too - so back to Manchester we went.

In order to take the potential for stress out of the experience, we decided to leave mid-afternoon and find a pub on the way to eat at and this worked pretty well. We visited the Dun Cow near Ollerton (off Junction 19 of the M6) and had a very nice scampi and chips followed by ice cream (Rose) and sticky toffee pudding and salted caramel ice cream. Because vanilla just isn't sickly enough! Nice pub, pity it's so far away... but would definitely go back if there was another must see gig in Manchester that we needed to go to.

We managed to navigate to the Cecil Street car park pretty smoothly (for a change) although of course the minute we parked it started raining. In fact judging by the amount of water on the roads on the way home it must have rained quite a bit while we were in the venue. 

We got there at just before 8PM; even though we knew that 'officially' Dragonforce were on at 8:00 and Amaranthe were on at 9:45 there was always the possibility of a switcheroo, as this was a co-headliner (Dragonforce headlined the other two UK dates). 

We were under the impression that the (sold out) gig was in the Academy 2 where we had previously seen Tarja and also Delain, but it turned out it was in the main Academy - so pretty impressive that it was sold out! Predictably the venue was rammed and after watching the first three minutes from the back of the venue, we decided that frankly Dragonforce suck massively with their incessant computer game widdling, so we headed to the upstairs bar and were pleasantly surprised to find lots of empty seats. Excellent. 

Dragonforce's six hour set dragged on and on, I mean it was only about 70mins but by Christ it seemed a lot longer, until finally, finally they fucked off. Thank you Jesus! The only good thing about their set was that they had a couple of oversized arcade machines on the stage which they could stand on to play, giving people at the back a great view. Oh and they also had some big dragon heads on stage later too. But that didn't change the fact that their music fucking blows.

A constant stream of people left the room after Dragonforce but we eventually managed to get inside, secretly hoping that at least some of those people wouldn't be coming back. Thankfully, some of them didn't, because the room was definitely less crowded for Amaranthe, though still a healthy crowd. Well, I say 'healthy', perhaps not the best term to use for this bunch of unwashed leprechauns... but still.

Now I'm not going to lie, Amaranthe aren't exactly my favourite band, but they're alright and I like some of their songs (Digital World, Mesmerize, Crystalline...). Nils Molin is probably the best singer in metal these days, I mean he sounds exactly like Ronnie Dio but with more range, and it doesn't get much better than that! 

Unfortunately they also have the Cookie Monster, who rather spoils what could otherwise be good songs with his solo parts. I wish they would just have him sing background vocals where they think it's necessary (or ideally not at all). He doesn't seem to add much to the proceedings other than sounding hilariously OTT in a band with as 'polished' a sound as Amaranthe - I mean sometimes they verge on sounding 'pop', and there he is acting like he's in Cannibal Corpse.

Elize is also a very good singer and very capable in the live setting and it was interesting that the vocalists seem to share the spotlight pretty equally rather than it being focussed on her. Unfortunately that meant the Cookie Monster got far too much time at the front of the stage, but eh... whatever.

The crowd loved them and I must admit I enjoyed them more than I thought I was going to. Rose loved it, which is the main thing. And even though we were a long way back at least we weren't packed in like sardines. 

We had a pretty smooth journey home too, after a wait in the car park - eventually resolved when the barrier was opened (we think the pay machine wasn't working - why put the pay machine on the actual exit barrier?).