DRAGONFORCE are an entirely unique band. Or more precisely, what is unique is how far they have managed to break through at the international level over the past two years. The band has been embraced in America as no other current young European metal band has been. Over the past year alone the collective gave over 70 concerts in the USA, visiting some cities 3–4 times; now a new American tour awaits them. Remarkable. What is it that attracted self-sufficient Americans to a European band playing not death metal (BEHEMOTH, too, have practically taken up residence in the States), but power metal? Anyone who has listened to even one DRAGONFORCE album knows this is far from standard, typical power metal — above all because the overwhelming majority of compositions are played at a simply insane tempo. In this spirit the band has now released three albums, and the result is that this international collective is one of the most in-demand young metal bands in the world.
So: moscow was visited by natives of no fewer than four continents. ZP Theart, the vocalist, is from South Africa — and incidentally the band's first bassist was also from that country. Sam Totman grew up in New Zealand, where he began playing in the band DEMONIAC, which relocated to England in 1997. Already on European soil, Hong Kong-born Herman Li joined the collective. In 1999 these two guitarists founded the band DRAGONHEART, a name that soon changed to DRAGONFORCE. Vadim Pruzhanov was born in Ukraine, in Chernihiv, where he lived until the age of 14; he joined the collective shortly before the recording of the first album. Drummer Dave Mackintosh is the only Englishman in the band; from 1998 to 2004 this man sat behind the drum kit of the unique act BAL-SAGOTH. Bassist Fred Leclercq has been in the band for one year; he has not yet recorded an album with the band, but all 2006 concert dates have already featured him on bass.
At the autograph session, unfortunately, only three band members were present — Fred, Herman, and Sam. Seeing all members of the collective would only become possible in the evening.
So: February 10th, late; no one is being let into the "Tochka" club, as technical problems have occurred, resulting in the cancellation of the planned support act ARIDA VORTEX. One way or another, somewhere around half past ten the band appears on stage and launches into an ultra-fast track from the latest album: "Revolution Deathsquad." First impressions. This is simply……… You're thinking "unbelievable" — well yes, that adjective fits in meaning: it was genuinely unbelievable — an unbelievable nightmare! No other words. The performance consisted of a drum solo, occasionally broken through by vocals, and a frantic mess of everything else. There was simply no bass guitar that evening; as for the two guitars — it was a complete wall of indistinguishable sound. The reason for such appalling sound is hard to say, but it is a stubborn and sad fact — the first few songs were simply impossible to listen to. They could only be identified by the vocal line.
Second came "Fury Of The Storm" from the second album Sonic Firestorm (2004). It opens, again, with both guitars in parallel — instead of the beautiful melody, nothing but noise came from the speakers; the situation was partially rescued by the vocals that followed. The drums, as before, drowned out everything possible. Then again from the latest album — Inhuman Rampage — "Operation Ground And Pound." At this stage the sound was partially equalised; something resembling a guitar solo could already be heard. The next fast track could be identified from its intro — it was "Black Fire" from the very first album, Valley Of The Damned (2003). One of the band's most beautiful compositions.
Next on the programme was the only ballad of the evening (the band has three in total — one per album): "Trail Of Broken Hearts." There aren't many drums in this song, so it was quite listenable; for the first time you could clearly make out the guitar playing, and this was also the welcome moment when the bassist's presence on stage was actually audible to one's ears. The band exits the stage; soon Vadim appears and launches into a keyboard solo — it's hard to say what he was hoping to achieve, but the crowd's reaction was very cool, and he didn't reach people's hearts. Actually, by this point you could already see the band's main negative characteristic — namely, the absence of an unconditionally charismatic leader. Unfortunately, but that's the truth. The band has no Andy Deris, who can paper over bad sound and outright wrong notes with his phenomenal acting abilities; no Kai Hansen, who only needs to make two hand movements before the hall erupts; no Hansi Kürsch, who — despite not playing guitar for years — still extremely dislikes leaving his position by the microphone stand and therefore brilliantly controls the crowd through facial expression alone. Both DRAGONFORCE guitarists perform acrobatic tricks — very entertaining; what they do on their guitars is simply incredible. The vocalist sings brilliantly; the keyboardist periodically appears at the front of the stage with a portable MIDI keyboard painted with red nail varnish. But with all of this, there is no magical hold on the crowd.
Another obvious problem: the guitarists don't always quite keep up with each other, so compared to the studio recordings there is a striking difference. Initially one wanted to blame it all on the sound, but closer to the concert's end it became clear that the issue wasn't only the sound, but also playing errors.
After the keyboard solo came "Soldiers Of The Wasteland" from the 2004 album — one of the band's most interesting tracks compositionally — and "Storming The Burning Fields" from the latest, a blistering five-minute track. "My Spirit Will Go On" from the penultimate album closed the main portion of the concert. The band briefly exited. Incidentally, these last several tracks were already quite audible.
The encore first of all brought a more or less decent sound materialising seemingly from nowhere. To begin: the main hit from the latest album, the album's opening track — "Through The Fire And Flames." With the exception of the bass, everything else sounded quite acceptable, and the drums were no longer pounding the ears raw. The concert ended with the title composition of the first album, "Valley Of The Damned" — which personally, inevitably, calls to mind the song "Destiny" by a certain excellent Finnish band.
There's no point drawing a lengthy conclusion. The band is clearly more interesting in the studio. That said, the live technical level is also very, very high. Enjoying the musical side during the concert was hindered first and foremost by the appalling sound — and it was precisely this that significantly undermined the impression. We note that the audience reception was generally quite warm — which is indeed characteristic even in the presence of such problems; audiences are, by nature, very forgiving. Let us hope that on the band's future visits the sound will be set up to a higher standard.
Report by Alan
Special thanks to SPIKA MERCHANDISING for providing accreditation
Setlist: Revolution Deathsquad Fury Of The Storm Operation Ground And Pound Black Fire Trail Of Broken Hearts Keys Solo Soldiers Of The Wasteland Storming The Burning Fields My Spirit Will Go On —encore— Through The Fire And Flames Valley Of The Damned
Photo report (photos by McAllen)
Thanks to SPIKA MERCHANDISING for providing accreditation