Music. Week-end concerts with Delain and Hollywood Vampires.

Hello dear readers,

I love music in most shapes and sizes that float around in the specter of classical and metal. I do admit that I am especially bias to Opera, Operatic Metal mixes and good old-fashioned Heavy Metal stuff, but I won't say no to Rock, or Symphonic, even Progressive for that matter. The important part for me is good quality of execution and unexpected creativity.

This being said, I was having a hard time the other week, as I was leaving the office on Friday to head to the Metalhead Meeting to see Delain for the 3rd time live, to remember the last time I went to a concert. I missed Tarja's December Ave Maria concert (it got sold out before I managed to get tickets and then there were none left). So, that makes it the Maximum Rock festival in October, when we went to see Epica. I used to remember the last concert I saw, used to prepare myself mentally in advance and put quite a lot of effort in getting ready on the day of the concert to attend the event. But at one point things changed. I am not sure if it is all the classical Opera stuff I've been learning recently, that outshine with their pompous highly concentrated music any demonstrative fan. Possible, but I don't feel anymore like donning on my lovely corsets to stand for hours, jumping up and down, whilst singing with my beloved bands. But I do appreciate those who still do this and enjoy it! I wonder, if this is what they mean by gothic chick growing up. :)

But let's not stray from today's topic. Which is Delain's concert from Metalheat Meeting on Friday and Hollywood's Vampires concert two days later, on Monday.

Delain was playing at the Metalheast Fest, before Dragonforce (which sadly, though highly virtuous didn't impress me that much and left me feeling as tired as if I were sprinting for 80 minutes or listened to Rossini's entire "La Cenerentola").

Photo by Carlos Funes

They had some technical difficulties which impeded them to start on time, but they more than compensated through their professionalism - their energy was highly positive and they communicated with the fans constantly throughout the show - you don't have to take my word for it, check out Carlos Funes' complete pictures of the show here.
When bands play at festivals, they usually have a given time frame in which to create a playlist and sing enough of their songs to please their fans and impress any potential new ones. In their 10 years career (which they will celebrate this year) they released 4 albums and 2 special re-releases and have quite a lot of iconic songs - which follow on subjects like loss of humanity "Mother Machine", loss of individuality "Army of Dolls" and intolerance, specifically referring to Sophie Lancaster's tragic death, "We Are The Others".

Photo by Carlos Funes

Their music per se is not something very complex or complicated, but it is honest and it does fall in the Symphonic Metal category and have electro and gothic influences. I have seen Delain now for the 3rd time and Charlotte is still one of the good front women out there - smart, fearless, has her own style, and most importantly, she sings really well (and it is clear that she works on honing her vocal skills) and communicates with the audience.

Photo by Carlos Funes

Her band members are all great musicians, from Merel (who is the wiz-kid with the guitar), to Timo (who kills at guitar and does some backing vocals), to Martijn (who is the master of the keys and symphonic), to Otto (who plays a very mean bass and on occasion also does the grunts) and to Ruben (who kills at drums). Together they are a well honed machine and this is what they presented to the public at the Metalhead Meeting. Next to the 3 songs I mentioned above, they also played "Get the Devil Out of Me", "Stardust", "Sleepwalker's dream", "Pristine", "April Rain" and their latest "Suckerpunch", which is also present on their newly announced future album "Moonbathers" (about which I will write as soon as it comes out). Even though they had a limited time (60 minutes) at the fest, I did enjoy the concert and I do hope to see them playing their own concert soon in Bucharest. Maybe enjoy some of their great collaboration with Alissa White-Glutz and Marko Hietala songs live as well.

As Delain was playing on Friday, other musicians where landing in Bucharest to spend their week-end looking for Vampires in Transylvania, at Bran (the castle and the town). It was a gang of good old friends, who are successful on more levels, and who decided it was high time they shared their passion for music with the world. Coincidentally they are Alice Cooper (the master of Horror himself), Joe Perry (from Aerosmith) and Johnny Depp (who's presence made all his fans go both completely mental and go to a concert they wouldn't normally attend) and they called their covenant the Hollywood Vampires, an homage to the band with the same name created in the 70s (by Alice Cooper among others) to bring homage to fellow musician friends fallen due to various abuses. Coincidentally this name is highly appropriate considering "the Cooper woman's" appearance in Depp's "Dark Shadows", made after the popular 70s series about a 18th century vampire in the crazy 70s and Alice Cooper's love for all things horror.

Photo by Miluță Flueraș

I will tell you right off the bat, if you didn't listen to their album yet (which is unforgivable, go get it and listen to it now) this is not an Alice Cooper concert, in the sense that it has no gory stuff, no slutty, murderous nurses, no executions, no snakes, no spiders and ironically, no vampires. Which was hinted as soon as we arrived at the venue and saw the row of fans waiting in line to get in, with quite a few Jack Sparrows and Edward Scissorhands among them. And then after getting in, being greeted by a huge Johnny Depp Sauvage advert and girls giving away samples of the Dior perfume.
I felt like the band's mission was to please their older fan base, educate their new one and give their other old and lost fellow musician friends an homage. They played a tight concert, focusing completely on music, cramming as much as possible in their playlist time, kicking it off with a huge fireworks show, meant to "Raise the Dead" (which was the first song) and continued with great covers by Motorhead, David Bowie, T.Rex, Love, The Doors, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith and Tiny Bradshaw, even some original's "Bad As I Am" (composed by Johnny Depp, Tommy Henriksen and Bruce Witkin), "Seven And Seven Is" (an unreleased song Alice Cooper covered in 1981), ending with "School's out", Johnny Depp's Birthday celebration and another fireworks show. You can see here the entire album with the pictures taken by Miluță Flueraș.

Photo by Miluță Flueraș

Alice Cooper proved once again that he is first and foremost a highly skilled showman and a great musician - his singing on "Break on Through" is scarily close to the original. I especially loved him playing harmonica on Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love". Joe Perry did most of the lead guitar parts and a lot of the backing vocals. Johnny Depp is not a complete noob at playing a guitar, he played in some of his movies, privately with various musician friends and he showed up at Alice Cooper concerts in the past, playing his Gibson guitar quite successfully. It seems that these encounters and their friendship gave them enough confidence to go on a world-wide tour. Nonetheless, he still seemed slightly uncomfortable in his position as a guitarist and played a solo in unison with Joe Perry, but one third from his musical line.

Photo by Miluță Flueraș

Where the band is completed by various highly talented musicians on the album's recording (Sir Paul McCartney and Dave Gorhl to just name a few), on stage they are joined by some of the musicians playing with Alice Cooper on his "traditional" shows.
Overall, I enjoyed immensely being part of this experience and listening to those amazing songs! I hope they will keep up the good work and hope to hear new stuff from them, as well as to see them soon.

I want to thank Carlos Funes and Miluță Flueraș for allowing me to use their beautiful photos!
And in case you were wondering, I wasn't paid at all for this article and I went to the shows with tickets I paid for.

Did you attend these events as well?
What other concerts did you attend lately?

Rock on!
Alex.

Find me on Goodreads and Instagram.

Snapchat alex-andreea.