On the evening of Tuesday 9th February, I travelled to the Underworld in Camden, North London, to see the symphonic metal band Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody, alongside support acts Temperance and Qantice. As the bitterly cold wait outside the venue led to the queue behind me becoming gradually longer and longer, anticipation for the gig grew as well.
The first band to perform on the night were Qantice, who are a symphonic power metal band originating from France. The band’s all-around arsenal of musical instruments being performed was interesting and quite surprising, as the band sported a violinist in addition to the traditional rock band set-up of a lead singer, guitarist, bassist and drummer. The band performed to a decent standard, but the only let-down was that the crowd was very sparse and those who were in attendance didn’t really vibe with the band’s invitation for audience participation. In terms of setlist material, the band performed what some might consider a relatively lengthy set for an opening band, comprised of tracks such as “The Question”, “Pirates”, “Hoverland”, and “Megantrop” before closing with the song “Giant of Embers”. Essentially, the band performed well even though there wasn’t enough people there for the set to be a give and take in terms of the band members and the crowd bouncing energy off of one another throughout the performance.
The support band for the night was Temperance, a melodic heavy metal band out of Italy. In comparison to the previous band Qantice, Temperance got a much more positive reception from the audience, considering as it had grown somewhat between the bands changing over. Techniques used by the band’s lead singer Chiara Tricario and backing vocalist/guitarist Marco Pastorino to get the crowd in the swing of things such as the regular clapping in time with the music and the usual “hey! hey!” fist-pumping in the air tactic were plentiful throughout the performance as the band members relished in the both physical and visual reaction they were receiving from the crowd. Temperance’s setlist revolved primarily around material from their two albums, namely 2014’s Temperance and 2015’s Limitless, but the band’s single “Me, Myself & I” did get performed as well. In essence, Temperance’s performance was a significant step-up compared to Qantice, but generally in terms of audience participation instead of the quality of the performance itself.
The headliners for the evening were Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody, named after one of the band’s guitarists. If you’re not aware, Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody is an Italian symphonic power metal band that has been active since 2011. Since that time, the band has released a total of two studio albums in addition to a number of singles since 2012. Much of the band’s setlist was comprised of cover songs originally written by the previous bands of the musicians on stage, such as Rhapsody and Luca Turilli’s other musical ventures, but nonetheless the band did perform some original material on the night, including tracks such as “Dark Fate of Atlantis”, “Prometheus” and “Of Michael the Archangel and Lucifer’s Fall”, before opening their two-song encore with the title track of their debut album, entitled “Ascending to Infinity”.
In conclusion, Luca Turilli’s Rhapsody put on an impressive performance given the circumstances despite the situation regarding the size of the crowd in attendance, but for me it was the support band Temperance who put on the best set of the night.
