Finally, I'm at my first gig since breaking my shoulder in February and I'll start by thanking Wembley Arena for changing my standing tickets to seats with a great view with no hassle at all, as I'm on doctor's orders that I can only go to sit down gigs until my recovery is complete. This also meant that we arrived early to make sure we got into the arena before the football finished next door.
So of the 14 gigs I was offered or wanted to go to this week why this one? Well mainly because we bought the tickets last year and didn't want to miss it.
It's been far too long since we first saw DELAIN promoting their debut album 'April Rain' at the Download festival; a performance that made us get the album but not get to see them again until now when they are promoting their 4th album 'The Human Contradiction' with an 8 month long tour that this support slot forms part of.
They opened with Go Away and sounded pretty much how I remembered them: a good female-fronted Symphonic metal band who are not quite as good as Within Temptation. The fact that the keyboards man Martjin Westerholt used to be in Within Temptation adds to the connection in the two bands' sound. Get The Devil Out Of Me really let Charlotte Wessels let rip on the vocals and start to get the arena going.
The two songs they recalled from The Human Contradiction were next. Army Of Dolls sounded great; the guitars and keyboards meshed nicely as Charlotte really worked the crowd up well before they launched into the current single Stardust. That got to a good part of the audience, who already seemed more than familiar with and it went down a storm. I think it was also one of the tunes that had flames shooting out of the stage.
Electricity (I think) saw most of the band pogoing along as they played and sang which kind of seemed a bit odd for the kind of full blown goth-y metal they were playing, yet it still worked and they got a great reaction to it.
Now I don't know if it was the painkillers I was on or what but I found both Sleepwalkers Dream and The Gathering rather emotional and found it hard not to shed a tear or two during those songs. Of course it could just have been the lyrics and the dramatic music and my joy at being well enough to be here listening to it, but either way I don't end up in tears at gigs very often.
They closed their set with Not Enough and a great sing along to We Are The Others that seems to be almost their theme song. Ditto the rest of the set, it was as tight as can be and Charlotte's voice sounded great. They had loads of energy and are well worth seeing on this tour, you can find the dates here: Delain online.
After the break WITHIN TEMPTATION made a dramatic entrance as the white curtain that bore the band's Hydra image fell and the video screen at the heart of the Hydra backdrop had the band's Dragon film on it before the flames shot out as they launched into Let Us Burn. This track is also the album opener and behind the smoke and flames and above the band, Sharon Von Edel started singing before descending the stairs onto the main stage. It made for a very effective opening.
They then went straight into Paradise (What about us?) On the album, it features a duet with Tarja, but to get round this live Tarja and all the evening's other guest vocalists appeared on the video screen with pre-recorded vocals which ensured the bands live timing was rather precise. It worked well and Tarja's disembodied head looked both scary and impressive.
Faster was the first older song of the set and it flew by. As with everything else, it had its own graphics and lighting to make it sound as dramatic as possible and yet everything throughout the set looked great. It seemed a little bit reined in compared to some of the band's earlier tours, but then Sharon had far fewer costume changes as well.
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The graphics behind the band during Iron were the first set that really looked like computer game graphics on a huge scale. The same theme continued on Edge Of The World which also featured one of Stefan and Robert's best guitar duels.
In The Middle Of The Night took them back to more romantic territory and had Sharon reaching really high notes that and some great keyboard swirls to complement the string samples. Our Solemn Hour was as dark as they get with lots of what looked like first world war imagery to go with it. Angels was greeted by huge cheers from the first notes and sounded great.
They then put tonight's second holographic guest up on screen as they went into Dangerous and the wrong Howard Jones duetted with Sharon to the backdrop of a high speed video game. And We Run added the holographic rapping of Xzibit into the mix and it stands out as a good (if unlikely)collaboration that I'm sure would have been better still if the real Xzibit was in the house.
Tell Me Why really brought the hydra imagery to life and ended with a long instrumental section and film as Sharon changed her outfit and the band had a drinks break before they re-emerged for a great crowd pleasing version of See Who I Am. Sharon then told the graphics lighting guy to wait so she could tell us a little about Alan Turing and how Apple computers are named after him. As an intro for Stand Your Ground that was one of the best songs of the night for me.
The Cross has that almost religious building towards epiphany sound that's almost perfect. It's rousing while still having the edge of foreboding both in the vocals and the graphics. Covered By Roses Has all the longing for a lost loved one conveyed through the keyboard swells against Sharon's vocals before she thanks us as they closed with a storming take on Mother Earth.
It's no surprise they got huge applause and came back for an encore which opens with a holographic appearance by Keith Caputo for their hit What Have You Done? That had the whole arena singing along. They then went acoustic for a very restrained version of Whole World Is Watching that proved quite a change from the rest of the show. Sharon then introduced a rather odd cover of Lana Del Ray's Summertime Sadness; a song I am not familiar with at all and don't think I want to be.
They then closed with a great version of Ice Queen before taking some bows and the obligatory selfie with the audience. Within Temptation are one very slick live machine well worth seeing on this tour that doesn't finish till the end of October.
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