Route Resurrection Fest night kick started 2018, inviting four amazing international bands to play: Jinger, Tribulation, Wintersun and the much awaited Arch Enemy to play in Barcelona and Madrid.
More than 1’000 people were united for a sold-out evening at La Riviera, Madrid. Among them, there was a large international audience as well, coming from Germany, Poland and elsewhere, never such a queue has been observed! An unfortunate reason for a lot of people missed the first songs from band support’s Jinger.
Under green and yellow lights, Tatiana Shmailyuk from Jinger, showed great vocals skills, busy singing both with clean vocals and growls. It was impressive how easy it seemed for her to sing that way. Meanwhile, agile as a cat, Tatiana was certainly entertained, proving her abilities to sing lying on the ground as well.
Their last song “Pisces” saw a moment that was the summary of their genre and proof they finally got the rewards they were deserving since their beginning in 2010.
A few minutes later, looking at the mower death panels, I have discovered the swedes Tribulation: with their rigorous morbid atmosphere, they arrived on stage. Their relentless riffs were as cruel and direct together with many brilliant slashing parts. They had absolutely killer songs and extreme but great vocals and presence on stage.
When the second song “Melancholia” started, some bass technical issues were solved and accompanied by enthusiastic applause from the crowd. Very professional, the rest of the band kept acting as if there was nothing amiss.
As they hardly slow down, I listened to some spanish Arch Enemy fans who were saying:“too much power in a row”.
Despite this, Tribulation was,for me, a very good death metal, psychedelic rock band with Morbid Angel, old Kreator, or Merciless influences. I felt that their music was truly infectious and that they deserved to be part of that night. Looking forward to see them as headliners somewhere in a near future.
Fifteen minutes later, the Finns from Wintersun appeared on stage. I was personally less fan of melodic black metal, but here in Madrid, fans were there yelling their name. Nonetheless, I was impressed by the charisma of each band member. The vocal screaming of the singer were awesome and well highlighted by the other musician’s backing vocals. Jari Mäenpää really likes to communicate with his fans and was very dynamic on stage: “Are you ready Madrid?” and as an answer the crowd started to sing and unwind on Wintersun’s best song titles including “Winter Madness”, “Sons of Winter” and “Stars”, “Battle Against Time”, and the newest “Loneliness (Winter)”.
Jari, looked really like a cool and funny metal guy, very smily and made us laugh while drinking his cup of tea lifting his finger, for example. You could really see all the musicians, included the last comer guitarist- Asim Searah were delighted to play in front of a sold-out crowd. Happy were the fans who came to see Wintersun as that night they could proceed with the waited Arch Enemy.
It was in 2014, the last time Arch Enemy played in Madrid, in order to introduce their new Canadian singer Alissa White-Gluz who substituted Angela Gossow who became, at that time, the band manager. Alissa, now accepted by the earliest fans, blew us away starting with “the world is yours” and “the eagle flies alone” amongst many others!
Alissa, as everybody could observe, is a ball of energy who never stopped moving and jumping here and there, headbanging her blue of hair, with great growls. Every song was highlighted by the amazing light show and Arch Enemy performed in front of a very responsive crowd that had been requested several time to sing along. And they were singing at the top of their voices.
Arch Enemy gave a setlist that was spectacular and included a lot of great moments with clean vocals too, but the encore was pure magic. Guitarist Jeff Loomis and Arch Enemy leader n guitarist Michael Amott played “Snowbound”, then “Intermezzo Liberté”, two beautiful moments, as technical as emotional. Then, Alissa stepped up to the front waving an Arch Enemy flag while the two last communion moments with the crowd shouting “All for one” from “Nemesis” then jumping on “Fields of Desolation” happened.
Fans on the night had now defined Spanish Route Resurrection Fest an unmissable event! So, let’s meet at the next one!