Opeth, In Flames & Red Fang Perform At Hollywood Palladium

Review by Andrew Bansal, photos by Carsten Steinhausen

December 9th 2014, The Palladium, Hollywood CA: Both hailing from Sweden but pursuing musical styles at completely opposite ends of the spectrum and having journeyed through widely different career paths, Opeth and In Flames are currently on the ‘Communion Of Sirens’ North American co-headline tour, with Red Fang as opening act. They arrived in Los Angeles for a gig at the Hollywood Palladium last night. Bringing together two very diverse sets of fans under this giant roof, Opeth and In Flames were limited to playing 75 minutes each, and had a point of prove in front of their own and each other’s devoted fans. For the Los Angeles faithful, it was an eagerly awaited event and the prospect of seeing how these bands put their best foot forward within their allotted times was enticing.

When I arrived at the Palladium at 4:15 PM for my pre-show interviews with In Flames and Red Fang, a sizable queue of ticket holders was already formed outside, and the excitement surrounding the show was palpable. From this time up until the start of the show a little over three hours later, as I hung around and eventually got my interviews done, I went through a series of wildly varying thoughts and emotions as a result of three conversations that will forever stand strong in memory.

Firstly, all the Red Fang guys recognized me from the interview I’d done with them at the first annual Metal Alliance show at House Of Blues in 2011. Considering the progress they’ve made in stature since then, I was very pleasantly surprised that they remembered it, and it painted quite a picture of their forever down-to-earth attitude.

Secondly, I spoke to friend and extremely dedicated LA concert goer Arturo outside the venue and he narrated an unpleasant experience he’d just had with Opeth frontman Mikael Akerfeldt a few minutes prior. Akerfeldt and Arturo used to write letters to each other 15 years ago. Arturo just wanted to show him one of those letters that he’d saved for all these years, and apparently Akerfeldt told him he “didn’t have time”, not even to acknowledge the guy for a few seconds. Deeply dejected by this, Arturo, who traveled a long way to get here and had planned on buying a ticket, went home instead. It was indeed a soul-crushing story and I don’t blame him for his decision.

And thirdly, on a much lighter note, when I walked up to (re) enter the venue after doors opened, an attractive female security employee waved me towards her, which confused me, as females usually pat down females only. “Are you comfortable with me patting you down, sir?”, she asked. The smiles on both our faces was sufficient to tell that it was a rhetorical question, and nothing else needed to be said.

The show began at 7:25 with Red Fang taking the stage to deliver a flawless 30-minute set of fist-pounding, foot-stomping PBR metal. With three full-length albums hugely successful and revered both in the metal underground and mainstream, Red Fang have boundless great material tucked away in their arsenal. Playing a half hour after doing a massive run of headline tours all over the world, to an audience that was largely unfamiliar with them as their dedicated fans probably weren’t about to drop $45 to see them here, Red Fang were taken outside of their comfort zone to an extent and showing signs of true greatness, they handled it with aplomb and emerged triumphant. The applause from the audience got louder with each song, frontman Aaron Beam’s banter helping the cause as well. Red Fang made absolute maximum use of their set, and the dynamic nature of their musicianship which stands them head and shoulders above others in the genre was evident in each tune they picked. ‘Crows In Swine’, ‘Blood Like Cream’, ‘No Hope’ and ‘1516’ represented the latest album ‘Whales And Leeches’, along with a few well-chosen older gems. The only negative aspect of this Red Fang set was that it ended, because 30 minutes of Red Fang is simply not enough.

Red Fang links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram

Red Fang Set List:
01. Malverde
02. Crows in Swine
03. Blood Like Cream
04. 1516
05. Wires
05. No Hope
06. Prehistoric Dog

Next up, In Flames appeared at 8:15 for 75 minutes of authentic Gothenburg melodic death metal, and garnered quite a lively response from their fans that had turned up in large numbers to support them here. This In Flames set was being streamed live on the internet, which is a modern-day practice I absolutely despise, and the only way I’d be on board with it is if the stream was not accessible in the country in which the show/tour is taking place, i.e. USA in this case. For multiple reasons, scheduling and otherwise, I hadn’t been able to see In Flames since their gig at the Fox Theatre in Pomona in 2009. This was a much different In Flames, musically and lineup-wise, but not a bad one whatsoever. This band often bears the brunt of metal elitists’ trash talk, but there’s no denying they’re efficient at portraying this musical style and are seasoned professionals at what they do. I honestly found it hard to connect to songs off of the last two albums but the fans seemed to be loving every minute of it. Older selections like ‘Cloud Connected’ and the set-closing ‘Take This Life’ were the highlights from my perspective. Frontman Anders Friden and his band mates were in good shape and delivered on all fronts, Friden’s reference to Opeth as In Flames’ “delicious fellow Swedes delivering ear candy” standing out as the best one-liner. Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of their set was the overbearing amounts of lights which prevented anyone from actually seeing the band on stage. Overall though, a solid In Flames set.

In Flames links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram

In Flames Set List:
01. In Plain View
02. Everything’s Gone
03. Trigger
04. Cloud Connected
05. Delight And Angers
06. Paralyzed
07. Through Oblivion
07. Only For The Weak
08. With Eyes Wide Open
09. Where The Dead Ships Dwell
10. Rusted Nail
11. The Quiet Place
12. Ropes
13. The Mirror’s Truth
14. Take This Life

Promptly at 10 PM, the house lights dimmed amidst deafening roars from this nearly packed Palladium turnout, as the gents in Opeth walked onto the stage. The last time Opeth played in Los Angeles it was an intimate headline gig at the Roxy in 2013, and considering just how bizarrely disappointing and profoundly frustrating of an experience that was, the expectations from this particular Opeth show were high, and one hoped for this masterful Swedish progressive metal band to return to the peak of their powers in terms of their on-stage musicianship.

In typical Opeth style, the 75 minutes allotted to them were filled by a grand total of seven tunes, the first two coming off of the 2014 release ‘Pale Communion’ and whilst they aren’t musically the best selections from the album in my humble opinion, they worked excellently as openers in this set and provided a great buildup for longer, older, more epic offerings to come soon after. Fans were seemingly enjoying the two ‘Pale Communion’ songs, and based on their reactions it could even be said that this album is better received by fans in the live setting than anything off of ‘Heritage’ ever was. But things were just getting started here, and the crowd lost their collective minds as soon as Akerfeldt played the first note of ‘The Drapery Falls’, and the general atmosphere inside the Palladium largely remained that way for the rest of the set, as one masterpiece upon another was presented with unparalleled perfection by the five musicians on stage.

Aside from that timeless classic from ‘Blackwater Park’, ‘The Moor’ from the 1999 album ‘Still Life’ took longtime fans down memory lane and lent a very well-rounded feel to a set that captured quite a large portion of Opeth’s long career, surprisingly it must be said, as one expected them to focus more on newer material. No Opeth set could ever be valid or complete without a tune from ‘Damnation’, and ‘Windowpane’ was the chosen representative from the album on this occasion, arriving at the perfect time in the set, between ‘The Moor’ and the monstrously epic ‘The Lotus Eater’ from the criminally underrated ‘Watershed’ album.

This Opeth show truly reached its crescendo with its final offering of ‘Deliverance’, a tune that should never leave the band’s set. From the combination of heavy and mellow segments Opeth played in this set, it was clear that Akerfeldt has reached new levels in his clean singing and is now good enough to even give non-instrument playing singers a run for their money. But more importantly for fans of ‘heavy metal musik’ as he fondly called it, his growls are still as potent as ever, and his recent shift to clean vocals on the new albums certainly isn’t because he can’t growl. Besides, his guitar playing was as exemplary as ever, and the skills of his four mates were never in doubt.

Perhaps the biggest lesson to be learnt upon comparing the Roxy show and this one is that Opeth is a band clearly belonging to the big stage, in front of a big audience. It makes for a much better atmosphere for all involved, as opposed to the so-called intimate gigs. Loud roars, circle pits, head-banging fans galore, loving every moment of a well-compiled set. This is the Opeth I missed, and welcome back with open arms.

Check out a full gallery of photos from the show using the slideshow below, and to view their downloadable versions or if you’re on Flash non-compatible device, click here:

01 to 12 – Red Fang
13 to 30 – In Flames
31 to 54 – Opeth

Opeth links: website | facebook | twitter | instagram

Opeth Set List:
01. Eternal Rains Will Come
02. Cusp Of Eternity
03. The Drapery Falls
04. The Moor
05. Windowpane
06. The Lotus Eater
07. Deliverance

Hollywood Palladium links: facebook | twitter | instagram

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