Apocalyptica - 05/07/2008 - '9:30 Club' Washington, DC

As mentioned earlier today I spontaneously decided to go to the Apocalyptica concert which took place in the '9:30 Club' where I had also seen the Saul Williams concert a month ago. This was the third time that I saw Apocalyptica in concert - I had previously watched them in Vienna's Gasometer and afterwards at the Nova Rock Festival 2006. I really liked the show in Gasometer but was less thrilled by the performance at the festival. To me Apocalyptica doesn't really work at an enormous festival stage, especially not if performed at 6 p.m. or something. Rather the band should be in relatively small and private venues. Venues like the '9:30 Club'.

I really couldn't think of a better location as both the atmosphere and the sound were just perfect. The first song or so the drums seemed to be significantly louder than the cellos but adjustments were quickly made because afterwards the sound was really good.

In terms of the music itself it seemed to be significantly more experimental and crazy than what I remember hearing at Nova Rock 2006. In general I also like their latest album Worlds Collide from which they played a couple of songs. It's definitely an interesting experience to hear these songs, many of which come with vocals on the CD, in only acoustic versions. All in all they certainly performed a good mixture of old and new material, no complaints there!

The concert ended with Nothing Else Matters, still one of my all-time favourite songs, no matter whether it's played by Metallica or Apocalyptica.


Next stop: Serj Tankian (a must-see website) from System of a Down fame at 05/15/2008 in the '9:30 Club'.