Enslaved, Norwegian Metal giants, went on their ‘Spinning Wheel Ritual European Tour’ and stopped on the 9th November 2016 in Hanover, Germany. They were supported by the Australian Progressive Metal band Ne Obliviscaris and the Americans from Texas, Oceans of Slumber. That’s an interesting and international combination of awesome bands, so I was very curious about it. The venue was filled with people but far away from being overfilled.
Oceans of Slumber began to play. Just at the beginning, they built up a nice atmosphere in the hall. It was a mixture of chilly parts with wonderful vocals of frontwoman Cammie and straight kicking riffs, drumming blasts spiked with growls of the guitarist and her powerful voice. I don’t know much of them, but I was really surprised how original they sound in respect to their recorded tracks. Another funny thing: the guitarist went on drums and the drummer went to the keys for the song “…This Road”. Then they changed again. Not bad, I hadn’t seen something like this often. Oceans of Slumber did it very fine to lead into the evening full of awesome music!
After a short rebuilding phase, Ne Obliviscaris came on stage. The special thing about these guys in my opinion is that they have a growler and a clean singer, who plays the violin from time to time. Actually, they rocked the venue with their performance on stage. It was fun to observe the guys on stage doing their magic on their instruments. The setlist was fine and a mixture of their two records ‘Citadel’ and ‘Portal of I’. Very, very atmospheric and nice show although the sound wasn’t optimal. The drums were too loud and some riff or parts were simply overrun by the drums. Nevertheless, it was awesome to stand in front of the stage to see the guys!
Then the headliners Enslaved appeared in the venue. They started and the stage lights got darker. Oh, the first time I perceived any light changing at this evening. They opened their show with “Roots of the Mountain”, a very powerful song. They played a very old song, “Fenris”, from the ‘Frost’ album released in 1994. Crowd-pushing songs like “The Watcher” or “Ethica Odini” were played too, and the people got in a small amount of movement like head nodding or headbanging. A surprise for me was that the crowd didn’t seem to be motivated, but that wasn’t the fault of Enslaved. But I saw that the crowd celebrated the guys and demanded an encore and they got it, drum solo included. The light show while Enslaved played was really amazing and at least the best one I’ve seen this year. The colors, turn offs/ons were always appropriate to the current atmosphere of the song or part. This really pushed the whole show of the guys to a higher level. Enslaved showed an amazing performance in my hometown and I’m so proud that I experienced it round the corner!
It was an amazing evening and an interesting mixture of bands. The people in the venue didn’t seemed very motivated to interact, headbang whatever while the bands played. Too bad for all people on stage, but maybe the cold, snowy weather and Wednesday as a weekday dropped down the mood of the people. For sure, the bands weren’t the reason for this. They performed very well and I was happy to be there. I’m looking forward for the next time!
