10-10-2010 Tristania

Supports: UnSun, Asrai; Venue: Melkweg, Amsterdam (The Netherlands)
By: Sabine van Gameren

Three female fronted bands were on the bill for the night. On a Sunday evening in Amsterdam there seem to be not too many people out, but eventually people came in.

UnSun was the first band to play. The Polish formation has a new release coming up. “Clinic of Dolls” is releasing the day after the gig, so this is the day for the band to convince people with their music. Unfortunately, this was not really working out for the band. The first song you could hardly hear vocals and that got fixed shortly after that, but the balance of the instruments seemed horribly wrong. Although Aya has a warm voice she seemed confused, maybe she couldn’t hear herself, and every transition to higher notes seem to be problematic. Also, the show seem to exist of a collection of individuals rather than it being a team performance. The interaction seemed to be non-existing and everyone seemed just content with doing his own thing. Main attraction of this band is not femme vocalist Aya, but guitarist Mauser who got fame as being a guitarist in Vader. His playing seem to interest many and with a van upon his hair perhaps the eye catcher as well. The catchy songs find their way to the audience and the end of their set is substantial better than the start, but this show was not much of a success in Melkweg.

The second band has a show in their own country tonight which results in a solid fan base that came out specially for them. Asrai is from The Netherlands and have been around for over twenty years. Three full length albums came from their hands, which latest one dates back to 2007. When they started it was clear that this band have been around longer, this is how a band should perform. Way better sound, good vocals and a group of musicians who feel comfortable playing together and have a great time doing so. The band had clearly knew to convince also some people who had not seem to know them before and the words of speech that goes around in the crowd seems nothing but positive. Shows like set a little hope for a new album, which hopefully will come some when soon.

Tristania is headlining this evening. The band have just released their album “Rubicon” and they had quite some lineup changes recently. Front femme Mariangela is one of the newest addition and although there was a bit of hesitation to observe within the audience, a few songs into their set she got the hearts of the fans fast enough. The stage is quite crowded which makes a movement a bit hard, but nevertheless everyone seemed to find their space eventually. They had quite a large collection of lamps with them onstage which gave a nice show, but sometimes was a bit overwhelming. Tristania choose to perform some songs of their older albums also which satisfied the fans. Though the show was not sold out, for a Sunday it was quite filled and most people seemed to have accepted this new line up as it is now. A good show of the band, perhaps it would be more phenomenal on a larger stage.