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.
The venue
I can’t tell much about the venue tbh. It was my first time at Musikzentrum and a friend had warned me to rather pack a scarf because she said she’d been freezing there. I personally can state that for me, this wasn‘ the case 😅
It’s located in a small kind of business area (you basically have to walk through what looks like the grounds of a company or whatever to get to the club) that’s close to a very narrow residential area. If you’re lucky you can park somewhere in the streets, but I also recall that there was some kind of parking lot in that business area as well. Not sure if you may actually use that though. My friend also told me it’s simple to reach via public transport coming from the main station, but as we went there by car I can’t give any own experience.
We didn’t use the coat room, so no idea if there was one or how much it cost, and I don’t remember prices for drinks since I didn’t buy them this time. The concert room itself is quite nice, the staff was nice, so I’d probably give the venue another chance if there’s another band I’d love to see playing there (except that I don’t like going to Hannover that much, bit far to travel and the traffic situation especially on week days can be troublesome).
Scar of the Sun
Opener that night were Scar of the Sun, a modern metal band from Greece. Unfortunately they had massive sound problems and the microphone went silent more than once. Not sure if I remember correctly but I even recall the sound being completely gone for a brief moment. Super sad, and super troublesome start for them. They did their best to warm up the crowd, but it was a Monday night, there weren’t that many people yet and you could feel that the sound issues didn’t add much to the atmosphere. Maybe it was the Monday night vibe as well, but I somehow remembered their performance in Bochum to have been much better than in Hannover (which is sad, because at their show in Bochum they started earlier than announced and half the room was still empty…). So this time they didn’t quite catch me as much.
Generally, their sound is nice and the singer has a great stage presence. They could still add a little more. They weren’t the best opener I’ve seen this year, but they’re definitely a band I’d give another chance.
Oceans
As the second act of the night, Oceans already had a slightly bigger audience than Scar of the Sun. Unfortunately, the Monday-night-feeling continued during their set and while they really powered through (and you know I’m a big fan of Oceans), I had the impression that the majority of the crowd didn’t quite catch it. The sound problems continued for them as well and their microphone went off a few times as well, which certainly didn’t help either.
I felt like there was a bit more activity during their set, but truly not as much as they’d deserve. Both Scar of the Sun and Oceans really had a hard job that night to warm up the crowd. Yet they did their best.
Oceans played for about 40 minutes, their set including songs like SPIT, PARASITE, Icarus, SLAVES TO THE FEED, We Are Not Okay, Sharktooth, The Awakening and BREED, CONSUME, DIE. I can’t recall the exact setlist and if I had a photo (I might have had one) I guess it’s one of those that got lost because I was very dumb and formatted the SD card I used for that show before saving the photos. I could recover all my photos of Equilibrium and I had saved the card that contained my photos of Scar of the Sun, but I lost 3/4 of my photos of Oceans and I’m still heartbroken.
Equilibrium
This might sound slightly exaggerated, but I personally had the impression that Equilibrium were a bit of the secret headliner of this tour. At least I had the impression that there were quite a lot of people in the audience who had come mostly for them. It got very crowded for a Monday night right before their set and the overall mood in the audience changed immediately as soon as they hit the stage.
For Equilibrium, I don’t recall sound problems – but I recall an energetic, amazing performance that I enjoyed even more than when I saw them in Bochum. All of them have such a great stage energy and for me personally it’s delightful to see how hyped Fabian Getto seems all the time about singing in one of those bands he used to listen to as a teen (I can – in the weirdest sense – relate to the feeling, as I felt hyped about having the chance to photograph a band I used to listen to as a teen 😂)
I’m not sure about the length of their set, I think it was about an hour long. I’ll add a photo of the setlist a bit later.
All in all, Equilibrium were another 10/10 performance. I’ve seen them for the third time this year and they were one of my favourite live acts this year. Maybe that’s a bit of nostalgia – as I said, I used to listen to them a lot as a teen and Sagas is still one of my favourite albums of all times (hearing Blut Im Auge for the first time this year at Summer Breeze made me tear up). In between, I somehow lost the connection when they partly used the Pagan/Folkish vibe, but they definitely got me back this year.
So all in all, this Equilibrium show was definitely worth the lengthy trip to Hannover and it was an absolute highlight of that night. I’ve had so much fun I can’t put it into words.
We left after Equilibrium though because Septicflesh couldn’t convince me when I first checked them out, our way back home was long and I had to get out of bed early the following day.
And to be honest … I don’t think anything could’ve topped Equilibrium that night 😂
*Photos will be added later*