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THE ARCHIVES
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Morrigan's Pit has closed down as of November 2006. The site and its articles will stay online as an archive until September at least, but probably longer.
The Archives
2002-2006
» CD REVIEWS
» INTERVIEWS
» LIVE REVIEWS
» SPECIALS
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JAMES LABRIE - EVERGREY
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Tor 3 - Düsseldorf (D)
April 28th 2005
http://www.jameslabrie.com
http://www.evergrey.net
We (Nico, Cora and myself) were wondering if an Evergrey and James Labrie combination would work, but any Evergrey gig in the area is reason enough to go check it out of course (if the work schedule permits it). So we went to Düsseldorf to watch them support Dream Theater singer James LaBrie, who is on tour to promote his solo-album "Elements Of Persuasion". Evergrey just released their live CD from last year's Gothenburg theater show, "A Night To Remember" - the DVD will be out at the end of May. Evergrey was more successful than we expected in this situation, the LaBrie/Dream Theater fans didn't seem to know the band well (hardly any singing along), but the clapping and cheering was loud enough! (Marlies)
EVERGREY went on stage five minutes before time, a little legal trick to give them five minutes more playing time. I won't complain ;) As if to be punished for entering the stage so early, the sound was quite horrible in the beginning - but isn't it always like that? Let's not be too hard with the soundman who only needed a few minutes to fix the situation. There were a few fellow Evergrey fans in the front rows but all others seemed to enjoy the band too as I could clearly see when I looked behind me. It 
wasn't only a few selected people raising their arms and clapping hands and it is not so often that a support band gets such a great response from the audience. And that even despite the fact that not everybody in Evergrey was in best shape. Henrik was quite sick actually and thus had to step back from the mike for backing vocals during this gig...and we would so much have needed his help during "I'm Sorry" ;) Like on previous gigs, Tom let us sing the chorus on our own without any
support of the band which unfortunately didn't turn out all too well here, hehe. Obviously not everybody knew the lyrics and those who did were soon discouraged or lost and were soon more humming than singing (if at all) although Rikard tried to save the situation and started to play along. Still, the song must have been convincing because after the show we talked to someone at the merch booth who insisted on buying the album "I'm Sorry" was on. Now, too bad it's only a cover song but I'm sure he'll love the rest of "Recreation Day" just as much :) Speaking of "Recreation Day", after Evergrey have played that very song someone in the crowd requested "Nosferatu" which I was almost sure they'd have in the setlist but Tom rejected the request and said they'd only play songs that they thought were good, haha. It was "Mark Of The Triangle" next. The show ended with "The Masterplan"
and I'm confident that Evergrey gained a couple of new fans in Düsseldorf. (Cora)
setlist Evergrey:
Intro
Blinded
The End Of Your Days
More Than Ever
She Speaks To The Dead
I'm Sorry
Recreation Day
Mark Of The Triangle
A Touch Of Blessing
The Masterplan
Since we came here to see Evergrey and we're not really very big Dream Theater fans, we didn't expect much of JAMES LABRIE's performance. The last time I saw him was yeeaaars ago and he had trouble hitting the high notes and all. But much to my surprise we stayed for most of his gig this night and I thought he sang great! Nico thought it was a bit forced here and there and Cora, well, she just doesn't like his voice. Musically there were similarities to Dream Theater, but the his new songs sounded heavier and more modern. The band didn't move much, that was a pity, but LaBrie was the centre of attention anyway. I did my best to get the setlist and I really enjoyed the first three songs that were fairly heavy, "Crucify" with a great oriental intro with a female singer, a grooving and more modern "Alone" (first song where I noticed the big role of Matt Guillory's keyboard solos) and the heavy "Oblivious" that made you wanna jump. Already after "Crucify" there were some technical difficulties, so James had to chat a little to kill the time, while they were "treating the patient" and someone in the audience spontaneously started to sing "Doctor, doctor, please!" (U.F.O.) hehe! After James promised to be back in Europe soon with Dream Theater 
the band continued the show. Most songs were from the recent solo-album ("Elements Of Persuasion") and the second MullMuzzler album, plus a few from the first one (I knew he wasn't planning on playing any DT stuff). Once they started to play the proggier MullMuzzler songs, we lost interest and it was hard to get back into it later on, a sweet ballad like "Slightly Out Of Reach" or Marco Sfogli's (on itself great!) guitarsolo didn't help. We watched most of the gig from the back and I appreciated the somewhat faster "Pretender" or "Lost" with Andy DeLuca's bass intro, but too many songs were a bit boring for our taste and having Nico and Cora next to me, enjoying themselves whaling along as the new LaBriettes, didn't help in trying to watch the gig in a serious way ;) - and nor did a drumsolo, no matter how good John Macaluso is! We spend a bit of time with Tom and Micke of Evergrey and they managed to distract us as well. Micke doesn't like it when musicians wear caps on stage (Marco was wearing one) and he wrote in my notebook, "1st rule in metal: no caps on stage!". I protested, telling him how my Into Eternity friends often wore caps and they look great! He grabbed my notebook 
again and added "(ok if you're from Canada!)" hahaha! During the last song Micke took us to the tourbus, so we left
James to let him finish his gig with the several hundreds of loyal fans who were are little more grateful for his talents than we were ;)
Setlist James LaBrie:
Crucify
Alone
Oblivious
Venice Burning
Confronting The Devil
Slightly Out Of Reach
(guitar solo)
Undecided
Pretender
Falling
Drained
Lost
Listening
Shores Of Avalon
(drum solo)
Save Me
Freak
A Simple Man
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Stranger
In Too Deep
Invisible
In the bus Micke let us hear parts of the new Project Hate CD where he played bass, the death metal project of Henrik, Jonas and roadie Loppa ("Death Destruction") and if he would've been able to find the CD of Jonas and Tom's side project we would've heard that too, but alas, he couldn't (and with the mess in the bus, I'm not surprised hehe). Instead he popped in the upcoming DVD of the Gothenburg theater performance and showed us astonishing versions of "When The Walls Go Down" and "For Every Tear That Falls" - how awesome to actually see Tom's wife Carina doing this duet with her husband on stage! The DVD also contains 7 hours of bonus material... drunken times. LOTS of drunken times! No matter how embarrassing it gets, it's all there! People are gonna LOVE this! We left Düsseldorf in the early hours of the morning after a happy happy night. (Marlies)
submitted by Marlies 02.05.2005
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