SWG3 is a cracking venue. Spacious, great sound and easy to park at… though a bugger for public transport if you need to use that. It was public transport that caused us issues getting there in time, but not directly to the venue. Due to buses being absolutely chocka in the town earlier in the day, possibly due to the Rangers home match, we were delayed getting home and out to the gig so we missed most of The Raven Age‘s set which is a shame.
I’ve caught them a few times before in slots here and there, and always enjoyed their brand of rock / metal. The sound tonight, though, during the last couple of songs was superb. I saw enough to make me wish we’d got there earlier to see the whole set, so they definitely left me wanting more.
The last (and only) time I saw Apocalyptica was in London in 2020. They were ing Sabaton and they were even better than I was expecting. This evening was to be a special treat, focusing on their Metallica covers, so I was very much looking forward to it. It’s taken them a while to follow up their initial Metallica album (which was released in 1996) with the recent Volume 2, but it was worth the wait with another collection of carefully selected tracks added to their repertoire.
This wasn’t just a vocal-less instrumental evening, though. There’s so much more to an Apocalyptica performance. All three front men and the “Hulk” (Mikko Kaakkuriniemi) on drums put on a charismatic show. The cellists strode around as much as you’d expect from a band featuring more lightweight instruments, and the light show was incredible. Sometimes you just don’t need huge flame pots or a gigantic walking puppet. Good music and some atmosphere can give you a great evening.
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There was a great mixture of old and really old Metallica tracks, with the most recent one on the setlist being “St Anger”… which in complete honesty I didn’t recognise until I checked afterwards. I think I listened to the album once when it came out and then ditched it. The rest of the set, though, could almost have come from my personal “best of” collection.
Some songs were played all the way through, mainly those where everyone would know the lyrics and the crowd could sing along. “Enter Sandman”, “Sad But True”, and “For Whom The Bell Tolls” fell into this camp. What I appreciated was that Apocalyptica recognise that a song with a fair bit of repetition just isn’t the same without vocals, so for a couple I did notice that the second “verse / chorus” was skipped. I completely get this, and it meant that more individual songs could be crammed into the set.
With the band becoming more popular it must have been a huge boost to them to be granted not only Jim Hetfield’s voice for their incredible rendition of “One”, but also Cliff Burton’s original bass line for “The Call of Ktulu”. The latter is an instrumental anyway, and bloody hell does it translate well to the cello. A fitting tribute to someone we lost far too early.
While the evening was moderately sedate (no pits!), there was plenty of headbanging going on, my own included. The very large crowd, all the more impressive given that the show clashed with the Arch Enemy / In Flames / Soilwork triple-header over at the Academy, were very vocal with their and it looked like Apocalyptica had a good time as well.
Next time, we’re promised, a more eclectic set. Which is fine. But they’re always welcome to come back and play some classic Metallica again.
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Photos by Mark Shelley
