Concert review: Self Deception, Eyes Wide Open & THECITYISOURS, Club Volta Cologne, 5 December 2024

Once again I’ve been to two shows of Self Deception’s current headline tour with their new album Destroy The Art. And stuff’s getting a little complicated, because a) I took photos at both shows but b) only at the first show in Vechta I took photos of THECITYISOURS and Eyes Wide Open and c) I don’t have the best memory of the show in Vechta because I started feeling terribly unwell mid-show, which overshadowed large parts of the concert experience. So in my review, I’ll focus on the Cologne show, which I could enjoy to the fullest. I’ll most likely prepare a separate gallery post for my photos from Vechta.

Concert review: One Morning Left & Lost in Hollywood, MTC Cologne, 31 October 2024

Other people visit Halloween parties, I decided to attend a concert. It’s been two very long years since I last saw One Morning Left live at Escalation Fest in 2022. Unfortunately, they then had to cancel their European headline tour in the same year due to bad ticket sales. So it’s unsurprising that their tour this year was called „Buy tickets for this tour tour 2024“. Well, so I did – and I was hyped – and here’s a little spoiler: IT WAS WORTH IT. One Morning Left might have made rank 2 in the best concerts of 2024 (no one will get past Imminence).

Concert Review: Equilibrium, Oceans & Scar of the Sun, Musikzentrum Hannover, 28 October 2024

First of all: This concert was actually headlined by Septicflesh, but we left before the headliner, so they’re not included in this little recap of mine. I mostly went there for Oceans and Equilibrium and it was a fairly spontaneous decision to visit this show as well (I went to the same tour in Bochum but I’m not going to review Bochum out of personal reasons, I’ll only upload a photo gallery later) after Oceans released their new album HAPPY. So here’s my little report.

Concert review: Imminence + Aviana + Allt, Carlswerk Victoria Cologne, 17 October 2024

This was wild. Until recently, I hadn’t listened to Imminence that much. It was mostly because my girlfriend started listening to them more and more that I added them to my playlists as well. When they announced their tour, we were still a little hesitant and wanted to wait for support. When the support acts were announced, we were still hesitant, because we didn’t know Aviana and Allt either. It was two things that made us buy tickets in the end: a) seeing Aviana at Free For All and b) seeing the photos and videos of Ilona Gerasymova. So to be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect. The closer the show, the more excited I got. And then the evening before, my girlfriend announced that she had the next day off – and we very spontaneously bought VIP upgrades although we still hated them, but we wanted to

Continue readingConcert review: Imminence + Aviana + Allt, Carlswerk Victoria Cologne, 17 October 2024

Concert review: Illumishade & Seraina Telli, Turock Essen, 28 September 2024

It’s been quiet for a while. I didn’t visit many concerts in summer – two more festivals (MPS Bückeburg & Summer Breeze), but due to some difficulties I didn’t feel much like blogging about them. And since I didn’t feel all to well during the show of Insomnium in Essen last month, I also skipped that one for blogging. So now I’m back with another Illumishade show. Actually the headliner was Visions of Atlantis, but out of multiple reasons I left before the headliner. That means I’ll focus on the opener Seraina Telli and Illumishade as special guest and I won’t say anything about Visions of Atlantis (I plan to see their show on Wednesday in Tilburg)

Festival Review: Free for All Festival, Stapelmoor, 20 13 July 2024

Festival number 2 this year – yet another one that took us roughly 2.5 hours of travel, this time towards the north. The main reason we decided to go there were Caliban, who I personally loved a lot at Full Force last year. Another big plus was that Maelføy were part of the line-up and we’d also seen Venues before (as support for Blind Channel), so all in all the line-up didn’t sound too bad given the price. Here’s my little festival report.

Festival review: Rock for Tolerance Friday – 21 June 2024

Rock for Tolerance was my first festival in 2024. After seeing Oceans twice this year already, I was a bit in an Oceans-phase. When I read that they would headline Rock for Tolerance, which meant a longer set than we’d ever seen of them, and that the festival was only about 2-2.5 hours away, I bought tickets without thinking too much about it.  Thankfully I was also allowed to take photos, lots of love to the RfT-staff. However, I only went there on Friday. The line-up on Saturday wasn’t my cup of tea and I felt a little ill anyway, so I really needed to rest and we didn’t go back on Saturday (although we would’ve had time after the Bad Omens shows in Europe were cancelled).  And as another small addition, we arrived fairly late since my girlfriend had to work on Friday and we could only leave in

Continue readingFestival review: Rock for Tolerance Friday – 21 June 2024

Concert review: St Aurora (& The Night Flight Orchestra), Tavastia Helsinki, 17 May 2024

This show was probably one of my most awaited shows in the past few years. St Aurora are one of my favourite Spotify discoveries. Their song They All Remember popped up in a Spotify mixtape of my girlfriend in September 2021 and since then, I lost my heart to this band. Players of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty might be familiar with their song Going To Heaven – which is an absolute banger. I was super excited when I found out that they play a support show in Helsinki during the time I would be there for a seminar, which gave me the opportunity to see them live for the very first time. Here’s how it went.

Concert review: I Prevail, Set It Off & Kid Bookie, Mitsubishi Electric Halle Düsseldorf, 11 May 2024

When I saw I Prevail in 2023, I was fairly unimpressed. To be fair, I was there for the support act (Blind Channel), and I got ill before the second show I saw of them. Considering this, I decided to give them a second chance and I got tickets for their tour this year almost as soon as they went on sale. I wasn’t too positive about the show when they announced shortly before the tour started that they would have to do it without Brian. So to be honest, even on the road there I was still almost convinced that the evening wouldn’t go too well. Let’s see if I was right.

Concert review: Finntroll, Metsatöll & Suotana, Turock Essen, 27 April 2024

Finally a review that doesn’t take me ages to write it down, yay. Last night we went to Essen to see Finntroll, who have been one of my favourite bands since I was around 13 or 14 years old. And since I don’t have any photos to edit this time and I have a short break between my work right now, I can take the time to write this little concert review.