I had been looking forward to seeing Baroness live for quite some time and so with much anticipation I got to Arena quite early last night. I had listened to about 30 seconds of one song of the opening band Royal Thunder so I wasn't really sure what was awaiting me. Well, with a perfect combination of heavy guitar and bass, hard drums and a mix of melodic and haunting vocals, Royal Thunder certainly has a new fan. I listened to their recent album CVI four times in a row today and can really recommend them! Unfortunately the lighting was not really up to much for the first couple of songs so I didn't get the best set of pictures - but I resisted the temptation to convert them to black and white because there's a couple of nice ones in there. Full set here.
Baroness themselves opened with the awesome "Take My Bones Away" and brought a set that just blew me and about 500 others away. They play with such vigour and joy and the energy really explodes off the stage so that everyone, even right at the back, is fully immersed. Their live sound is superb, the songs sounding just as good as on the album and they add enough movement to make it a full-on show, although I would say it is mostly the guitarists John Baizley and Peter Adams doing the heavy lifting there. I was beginning to think they were a little quiet when it came to talking to the crowd just when they started interacting more about halfway through the set. Some nice, personalized comments about Vienna and their experiences here made everyone feel like they were friends - and that continued after the gig when they walked around in the crowd and merch area. What was really great was the thought they had put into the encore: playing 3 songs off their old albums which complemented all the newer stuff they had played during the main set. I had some fun processing the pictures, hope you like them! Full set here.
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