Concert of Draconian, Fallen Sentinel and Tears Of Martyr (April 5th 2008, Madrid)

I was training all week for getting some sleep before going to the concert of Draconian to Madrid. It would be a long long trip of 8 hours and we would go from here at 6 AM...
Anyway, the day arrived and I couldnt sleep more than 2 hours :(
The trip was organized by the supporters of Draconian, a band from Vigo called Fallen Sentinel, a great band which I am glad I am friend of some of the members.

6:30 AM Saturday
The bus picked us up.
Sleepy face but excited about the trip we were going to make, my brother, Thomas (an erasmus guy in Vigo from France) and me joined the rest of the people.
Thomas was in the bus stop already 2 hours before the bus came hehe, he decided not to sleep and to come directly from going out (the day before was that university party I wrote about in the last post). Brave guy!! XD
We got off few times for resting and eating along the way to Madrid. Quite normal having a trip of 8 hours... But anyway the coming to Madrid wasnt that heavy as I could expect... maybe the excitement of reaching the destiny :P



4:00 PM +- Saturday
Arriving to Madrid.
After spinning around some streets searching the place of the concert, we finally got off in "Sala Ritmo y Compás", the place of the event and helped Fallen Sentinel to carry their stuff into the pub and later we found out some place for having the lunch.

I guess seeing lots of people dressed in black coming to the restaurant was shocking for the people who were attending there XDD
By the way, quite expensive place, Madrid, for eating, and not very good quality (it's normal for us.. we are coming from one place that we have very good food stuff :P)
We wanted to have a walk around the city, but it seemed things are really far in Madrid and we had to take the subway. We didnt have so much time as we would like, so the decision was to stay near and to have some drinks before the event.


8:30 PM Saturday
The theorycal starting of the concert.
This is like always.. just a theory hehe. We reached there but we waited 30 min. more for the show of the first band.

Tears Of Martyr
This is a band from Canarias Islands, but settle down in Madrid. They are playing Gothic Doom Metal, not bad at all. People were quite quiet at the beginning but little by little they started to support them.
The typical couple growling-male / soprano heavenly-female (After Forever, Theatre of Tragedy... and many bands of gothic doom in the last years) and very well composed songs, with quite nice rythm changes, but I found a bit the lack of originality. Anyway it is what they do, and they do it correctly.
The female singer has a really powerful voice and she can reach very high notes, but under my sight it wouldn't be bad if she sang lower sometimes. So high-pitched voice melodies made me a bit tired.
Another thing was that it would be much better if they didnt use so much sampling. It gave the sensation of not completely fresh music.
Tears of Martyr





It was surprising the style of the members of Tears of Martyr refering to clothes.
The singer, a typical gothic style, with metal, small chains and black-gothic dress.
The male voice and guitar, black raincoat and transparent fishnet shirt, quite gothic style as well.
The bass guitar seemed a viking metal warrior, with that chainmail and the general looking.
And the drummer seemed to be taken from some 80's B-serie science fiction movie of a futuristic apocalyptic story XD


Good starting for the concert.

Fallen Sentinel
The band of Gothic Progresive Black Metal.. or Dark Progresive Gothic.. (I dont know how to call their style XD) did an excelent show.




Though some people told after they didnt listen the keyboards of one of the girls, from our place we could listen quite well all instruments, knowing that it's quite difficult to get a perfect sound with 2 keyboards, 2 voices, 2 guitars, 1 bass and 1 drum.
So I think this was one of the best times I have seen them in live. The show was not very long.. just 45 min. but ok, they werent the main band. The right time.
All the fans we came from Galicia made a lot of noise and support them like I havent seen before in Galicia. In fact I guess (and heard) people from Madrid were quite surprised all we were cheering them up so strongly. Some were annoyed (maybe envy?, I was told people from the capital were quite silent and dull in concerts) because we "didnt allow them to listen the music" (of course absolutly exagerated) and others were telling "oh concerts in Galicia must be great" (I really would like all were like this one).
It was also nice that we spread our enthusiasm to the rest of the people, who realized that they were attending to a worth band and joined cheering up, making a total awesome ambient.


One funny anecdote about this matter was when the concert was finished and I was greeting the guitar player from Tears of Martyr. He told me something like "hey we have to go to Galicia to play!!" hehe... At first I didnt realize, but later I recalled the great atmosphere of public shouting, chanting and supporting :) of course they would like to have a public like that.. wouldn't like you that???




So good sound, proffesionalism and great songs. They are really a good band, and I tell this, not thinking that they are my friends, I was fan of them even before of meeting them in person.
My neck is still hurting since last saturday, as many of the people who were cheering Fallen up ouchs :P
Great people, great band.
Fallen Sentinel - A Part of the Show





Draconian
The swedish Doom Gothic Metal band came after a long waiting, introducing the new album from this year "Turning Season Within". They took a lot of time to prove all was ok and even they put a curtain in front of us for keeping the secret of the "making of" XDD
Well, if they wanted like that.. I guess it's ok..
It was surprising when I checked their website just before the concert. They did so so few concerts before!! And this was a bad starting point, I guess, the lack of experience over a scenary. But I have to say they did also a great show. Not very talkative, not moving a lot, and not very communicative with public (well, I know this is Doom, they wouldn't be so happy XDD), but still... we were doing some headbanging from time to time with parts of some songs, like "daylight misery" or "seasons apart".. but the culminating moment of the show was the great, the amazing "the cry of silence", almost 13 minutes of pure melancholy, pure feeling. Awesome to see that in live. The concert was great itself, but after that song.. I dont care anymore about possible faults of sound or the booze of the singer (I didnt realize about it, sincerely, but people there told he was "a bit drunk").
That song made the concert of Draconian big help to consider it an absolutly worth concert.
The bad point was the last song which made us a bit bored, too depressive for being a last shot. They should end the concert with something harder, like "silent winter" that they forgot in the setlist!! noooo!!!
Anyway great concert of the 3 bands, and worth effort coming to Madrid to watch this show.
Draconian - The Cry of Silence

Draconian - Earthbound








Setlist
01 When I wake
02 Bloodflower
03 Heaven laid in tears
04 She dies
05 The cry of silence
06 Seasons apart
07 Earthbound
08 Daylight misery
09 Morphine cloud
10 Not breathing
11 Death, come near me


The singer with red nose.. and of course the drink near him :P


2:00 AM Sunday
End of the concert.
It was supposed we would have a saturday night metal fever in some place.. but most of us were really tired and the only thing we would like to do was to eat something and rest. So that's what we did.

3:30 AM Sunday
Back to Vigo.
It was reaaaaally a long day, and we just went into the bus and rest until our coming to Vigo.. so another 8 hours by bus.. and..

12:00 AM Sunday
Reaching Vigo.
After that.. bed.. food.. shower.. all together please!! XDD
One pic in front of the bus... and everyone back home..
It was a great trip, a great experience and with great people.
I would like to thank and greet everyone from the band, and from the bus, it was great to share with you this adventure, and I would like to repeat it some time more, even sleeping few.. eating so so and finishing dead tired hehe :P
Thanks to all.
See you next time!

San Pepe 2008, "universitary party"

Last friday 4th April we had a party in the university of Vigo. It was the party of the Engineering Faculty, named San Pepe.
I am sorry that I didnt make a post talking about my univ. before, but now you can see a bit of it with pics.
We are kind far from civilization, around 10-15 km far from the city of Vigo. So, the only way to reach there is taking public transport (bus) or by car. It is situated in the top of a mountain and it has a really own climate: if it is warm down in the city, there it's possible to have a burning temperature, if it is cloudy in the city, maybe it is damn cold up there. Sometimes we can find a terrible fog there and down it's ok, or maybe down with sun and there with rain... strange microclimate XDD
Well, on friday it was quite warm down, and in the CUVI (name of the place where university of Vigo is) it was damn hot.
So I went up there at 15:00, though the party is starting at 10:00 or 11:00 with the first people sitting in the square and start drinking ("botellón" called in Spain).
I was really about to not to go. There are few interesting things for me to see there, just get drunk or watching some bad concerts (which few people care after some alcohol). The most interesting would be to meet people and friends, but every year less and less. I will explain this later.




So "San Pepe" is maybe the second biggest party in university here (the first one, "San Teleco", already was some months ago, I just went 1 hour to that and back home).
So finally I went and joining me in the bus, lots of teenagers with their bottles of coffee liquor, kalimotxo (cola with wine) or big cans of beer. And this is the main reason of my apathy about this party, and other big universitary parties.


It is becoming since around 5 years ago just a party of drinking and a party where teenagers from high schools in Vigo decide to skip classes for one day and getting drunk "like universitary students". Every year I am watching the complete decadence of these parties, most of my faculty friends and partners are deciding to stay at home that day.
After some hours of bad concerts (bad sound and bad rookie bands generally, this time they were) people there (mostly 15-16-17-18 years old with few selfcontrol) start to be heavy drunk, stoned or whatever, ambulances start to appear, little quarrels, people falling between all the rubble and trash or puking in some corner, throwing glasses to the ground or destroying some public stuff ... cleaning workers have reeeeally a lot of work the next day XDD





In my faculty of economics, since 3 years ago, they are hiring security men for keeping safe the building (some years ago people came with drinks and maybe throwing glasses to the ground or stealing some metal sign, it was the starting of the decadence, the coming of crowds of teenagers and non-universitary guys). In fact, just in my trip to Madrid to the concert I will comment nextly, there was one girl behind me who was talking about the party of San Pepe and that she was really drunk and carrying some direction sign from some faculty... of course she wasnt university student, I think she was too young, and she didnt care too much about our installations, like many of the people who attend since time ago to this "universitary party"... well, I was shutting up, but I really dont like this kind of unmature behaviour, and specially when you are seeing when part of the money you pay to study is going to be wasted in damages of stupid drunk people... when it would be much better whether it was spent in the lots of lacks of the "Universidade de Vigo"...
I remember when it was celebrated years ago, and there were not so many teenagers, and consequently less uncontrolled drunk, less damages, and the atmosphere much better. There were even university students who came from other universities of Galicia to Vigo, but not very many right now.







So this is my opinion about these parties... maybe for first or second academic year students and erasmus people would be interesting, but for us it is not anymore.
It was a party of students, and it became a party where 15-year old and people out of university environment can get drunk and smoke some weed at the light of the day far from parents and police. And believe me I am so sorry to say that.
Links (spanish):
Atlantico diario
La voz de Galicia