17-07-2018 Soulfly

[schema type=”event” evtype=”MusicEvent” name=”17-07-2018 Soulfly” description=”By: Miguel Melo Support: InSammer” sdate=”2018-07-17″ street=”Rockclub Tapper” city=”Tallinn” country=”EE” ]

This was the third time that I have seen Soulfly live. 2006, in my hometown, Porto, Portugal, 2010 Poznan, Poland. This time, Tallinn. They had a tough spot, since the night before Guns n’ Roses played in one of the biggest (and longest) concerts the city has seen. Cannibal Corpse were playing 3 days after. So all those fans that are not that die hard would skip the tribal metal gathering. Not my case, of course. I never skipped a concert of Soulfly if they were coming to town. In the first one, I was a boy, 19 years old, and I would jump the f*ck up a lot, obviously. And Dave Ellefson was their bass player, in his brake years from Megadeth. The second one was in Poznan, 2010. A major disappointment, since at the time, Max Cavalera was not in his top shape (remind me of Axl Rose). Now, in 2018, I was about to see what was the reality.

The house was considerably full, even with the best summer weather that Estonia has to offer with sun until 22:30 and massive competition from other metal bands. The crowd was packing in a dark kinda small but awesome room. Rockclub Tapper is used to see cool bands coming around. The support, InSammer, seemed and sounded like an heavier version of Guano Apes, but the voice of the lady didn’t convince. I guess they got going some of the attendants due to beer goggles, but still, everybody was waiting for the main act.

And finally started! Good old dark ages recorded intro, but no Brasil guitar and no traditional local football shirt to take out? And the poor Max Cavalera looked tired to me. Much thinner, not comparable to Axl Rose anymore, but still, grey hair, closed eyes. I guess the energy had to build up. And that started to happen shortly, with a bunch of songs firing up the crowd, even if Max tried to start the moshing, but the Estonian peeps are a little bit more peaceful than that. We got screaming soulfly all the time. There was some movement in the front, but nothing like I used to remember, with bodies flying, and full mosh pit. Of all things, there was sweat, that for sure. The summer has been unforgiving.

The concert was growing, with the band starting to play their greatest hits and the crowd remind their good old (weird) days when Nu Metal was king (or at least contender). No Hope = No Fear showed sparkles and then I saw something that I never seen before. Max Cavalera called his grandson, a young adorable blond kid in his 6 or 8 years old, to scream something like “f*ck the record industry”. Not that was the first time that I heard that in a concert. But it was the first time I have seen a grandfather with his grandson in a metal concert screaming against the system. And now get this: at the drums there was Zyon Cavalera, Max son. 3 generations in a single metal concert. I was expecting to see it a folk concert, but never in Metal. Think again, and Soulfly can be considered as well folk metal, or some sort of thing like that.

There was a singalong of “Umbabarauma” with everybody going at it in the venue followed by and immense solo. Huge respect to Marc Rizzo. The man can play guitar. Specially in a medley that goes for some serious minutes and combines Slayer, Black Sabbath and some of his own creations. Think again and there were a bunch of good covers played by Soulfly, a band that has an immense respect to their roots (pun intended). “Bleed and Back” to the “Primitive did their bit” before the encore. I have to say that I was impressed with the public participation calling back the band. When they returned, Max finally had the shirt for the national team of Estonia dressed. For the encore, we finally “Jump the fuck up” and had “Eye for an eye”. Max Cavalera had to leave a bit earlier, but the remaining band kept going with a final instrumental of “The Trooper” (curiously, Iron Maiden played in Tallinn recently as well).

All in all, the concert was good, the crowd was awesome and the place was great. In all honesty, was my second favorite concert of Soulfly, but could well be the first. I had a blast.

Setlist:
The Dark Ages
Frontlines
Prophecy
Fire
Porrada
Blood Fire War Hate
Rise of the Fallen
The Summoning
Mars
No Hope = No Fear
Umbabarauma
(Jorge Ben Jor cover)
Downstroy
Guitar Solo
Bleed
Plata o Plomo
Wasting Away
(Nailbomb cover)
Back to the Primitive

Encore:
You Suffer
(Napalm Death cover)
Jumpdafuckup / Eye for an Eye
The Trooper (Iron Maiden cover)