Written by:	Jeff
Published:	April 21, 2008
Event:	Epica, The Old Dead Tree, Leiden
Location:	Havana Café, Toulouse, France
Galleries:	Epica, The Old Dead Tree, Leiden by Jeff (9)

Ha it's good to be back in my hometown, especially when you know that you can attend a good Metal show. It was the case this night with the first date of Epica's Consign To Oblivion Tour 2005. The Havana Café was full (let me tell you it is a great thing for Toulouse) and all three shows were a real success: a great night, really.

Of course, Epica wasn't alone and the first band was a local one, Leiden. Those 4 guys and their female singer Bérangère are famous in Toulouse; they actually are the only real Metal band of the city that gained real success in France.





This is probably the 7th or 8th time that I saw the band but this time they were on stage to present their new album "Dualité". Leiden was good however I don't know why I found them a bit frozen and I remember that they were a bit more communicative in the past. Though their performance was solid and I really recommend you to check their albums if you have this luck.





The second band of the night was The Old Dead Tree. Nowadays it seems that I can see them every week and if I was a bit disappointed by each of their last performances I must admit that they are growing on me (probably because I know their new album now) and I enjoyed the show. A lot of people were there for them once more, the show was really cool and we had a really furious pit. Unfortunately due to a technical problem with the bus in the afternoon, they had some problems with the sound and had to take three songs out of the set. Bad luck?





So now Epica. I've seen them four times already and let me assure you that they kicked serious ass once more. I'm not talking about the music, I mean people either like or hate this kind of soundbut nobody can say that Epica is a bad band live. They were really charismatic, talked a lot to the audience and gave a lot of good vibes to the excellent crowd of Toulouse (we even had an apparition of the well-know pink pig from Toulouse, Lanus)





For more than one hour and a half and with two encores the band from the Netherlands and its really gorgeous frontwoman, Simone Simons played songs from their first and second albums. Evidently no need to add that it was awesome on some "already" classics songs like "Sensorium" or "The Phantom Agony". Same with the new ones like "Dance Of Fate" or "The Last Crusade", they were perfect and I really think that those songs must be heard during a live show. I had a talk with my friend Deadsoulman who hates Epica on CD, and loves them live. Why? Well we had the proof tonight, their songs were a lot more powerful, as always, and the result was that even those who don't like this kind of music in general liked the performance. Though I'm sure that the beautiful Simone helped a lot too [Note of DSM: for sure ]


What a great show my friends, I really hope that I will have the luck to see Epica again in the future. They were all really friendly and their set was perfect. So believe me, if they're coming to your city and you're not allergic to this kind of music, go go go! You will never regret it!

Special thank to Mathieu and all the Jerkov team for the accreditation and the perfect organisation