A freezing cold Monday night was always going to be made better by a bit of internationally acclaimed live music. Coheed and Cambria, one of the leading bands in the Alternative-Rock genre, really went all out for their show on Monday the 15th of November and the gig went down a treat.
Given the high technicality of their material and the complexities of the vocals that Coheed perform on their albums, I was initially apprehensive about how good they would be live, but my fears were totally unfounded – front-man Claudio Sanchez was hitting almost every note and the instrumentation from the band was amazing, coupled with Claudio’s highly contagious energy the night was off to a great start.
In their one-hour set the band powered through a good range of their material, opening with one of their most memorable songs, the title track of the second album In Keeping Secrets of the Silent Earth: 3, the band effortlessly worked through songs from all 5 of their studio albums, playing a mixture of popular tracks and album tracks that had the crowd going pretty wild. Personal favourites were Shattered Symphony and No World for Tomorrow, played perfectly and an absolute joy to see played live.
Unfortunately the sound levels were slightly off, guitarist Travis Stever couldn’t be heard all that well, which often meant that a song would start with the resounding rhythm playing hiding the tell-tale melody that let us know what song it was – even as a fan of Coheed it was hard to tell what songs were starting. Similarly, Stever’s vocal accompaniments to Claudio’s lead-singing were sporadically heard which was somewhat disappointing. Still, once the songs were underway they were awesome to listen to, and when Claudio picked up his double-necked Gisbon SG the crowd all knew that they were about to witness Welcome Home, and it went down an absolute treat.
It was a great night and if you’ve not heard of Coheed and Cambria I’d highly recommend them, and if you do get the chance to see them live, either on a tour or at a festival for example, you’d be a fool not to check them out!
9/10
Good: Great variation in their set, all very well played and sung.
Bad: Sound levels were slightly off which was aggravating at times.
