In between all the Bad Omens shows, we decided to have a little break with some symphonic metal. Six concerts in 9 days is a bit of a heavy schedule, but with ILLUMISHADE as a kind of a cooldown in between, you couldn’t do much wrong.
The venue
At least for this concert we didn’t have to travel for several hours, but had a short drive to Bochum only. Although we’d been to Matrix before, it was on this day that I discovered that there is a free parking lot right in front of the venue. Or let’s rather say: I discovered the last time when we were there and had parked our car in one of the streets around, so this time I knew it was there and it turned out that it was apparently free. It looks like a supermarket parking at first glance because there is a LIDL, but there are no signs stating that this was for customers only.
When we arrived, there was already an unexpectedly long queue, so I knew we wouldn’t make it to the front row this time because the Tube in the basement of Matrix is very narrow. So far I’ve had mixed feelings about this venue. Generally I like it. We’ve been to concerts in the Tube and the Rockpalast so far and I like the atmosphere of both. The Tube looks a bit like a subway tunnel, Rockpalast is a nice small club room. But at both concerts I’ve been to the sound wasn’t very good, so I had my doubts about this show. Thankfully Matrix made a return, because the sound at the ILLUMISHADE show was great. So at this point I can’t say anything negative about this club. Okay, except for the toilets. As a woman, toilets without proper seats are a nightmare, so that wasn’t very thrilling.
Also, prices for drinks are absolutely fair and they have a good variety of drinks there. We’re back at club vs large venue.
And yeah, no idea about coat check. We didn’t bring jackets. Again.
The merch
This one gets a separate paragraph here because I came with a mission. In Uden, we hadn’t bought the drumhead that was handpainted by Jonas Wolf – which we regretted afterwards. Then we saw that Jonas made individual designs for each city they played in, so we came with the mission to buy this goddamn drumhead, no matter what it would look like. So while my company went into the concert room, I went straight to the merch and asked their lovely mercher Jessika about the drumhead. Since Jonas hadn’t finished it yet when I arrived she offered to reserve it for me, which I happily accepted.
And you know what? IT WAS WORTH IT BECAUSE THIS DRUMHEAD LOOKS ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!
Also, this time ILLUMISHADE sold notebooks. I’m a writer. I hoard notebooks. And it was squared paper. And they had notebooks for the different tribes. Since I first couldn’t find the screenshot of my tribe quiz result, I initially bought the Illumi-notebook but managed to swap it for a Faeva-one after I finally found the screenshot.
We didn’t stock up on any more merch because we had already bought the tourshirts, a jacket and guitar picks in Uden, but speaking of guitar picks: Yannick’s bass pick has one of the coolest designs in our collection.
ILLUMISHADE
This. Show. Was. So. Good. I was especially happy that this time Yannick was there as well. I thought this was going to be the chill part of the weekend but despite not having much space because once again people pushed forth that hadn’t been there before, I headbanged and danced and jumped and sang as loud as I could. This show was anything but chill.
I can only repeat what I’ve said in my last ILLUMISHADE review: The stage energy of this band is absolutely amazing. Since the light was ten times better this time we could also see significantly better and I somehow felt … even more torn in and awake than at the last show I guess? Even though I wasn’t even in the front row this time. But I had so much fun. They’re all amazing performers.
Not sure if the rest of the crowd agreed with us though. Somehow I felt like most people didn’t really have it and there wasn’t much crowd response to their announcements either. Okay, well, when Jonas alluded to Herbert Grönemeyer and Bochum’s supposedly big metal scene it almost felt a little awkward because I had the impression that people from Bochum were a minority in the room. And since a significant amount of people in the crowd seemed to be not even German it’s not unlikely that they didn’t even understand their announcements. But … yeah, with some people around me I thought they were not even enjoying the music.
In comparison to Uden, the setlist was altered slightly, as in: the order of the songs had changed. Which confused me at first, because I thought they had ditched Tales of Time, but no, it just came later in the set.
Anyway, one of the best parts about being at the last show of a tour is that you often get the entertaining part of the bands touring together getting on stage together. So at the last song of ILLUMISHADE, some of the Delain-guys entered the stage and basically started cleaning up. It was highly entertaining. And then they brought some desserts on stage 😂 And all in all there was so much positivity on stage that night that I was just in a very good mood afterwards.
We still left the front after ILLUMISHADE’s set because you know, chill part of the weekend. Also our drumhead was waiting for us at the merch and since the Tube is tight and hot, we didn’t push back in after finishing our purchases at the merch. Instead, we bought a drink, sat down next to the bar and chilled.
And this is why this review doesn’t contain anything about Delain. Because I simply didn’t pay attention during their show, After all, this was one of the concerts I went to because of the support act – and the last time, Delain didn’t quite manage to catch my attention.
All in all … I can’t wait to see ILLUMISHADE again.
