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Earlier I was fortunate enough to see Opeth at a show they were headlining. That means I saw Opeth play for a little over two hours; two hours of pure amazing.
Here's the set list ("Song Name" - - Album):
"Heir Apparent" - - Watershed
"The Grand Conjuration" - - Ghost Reveries
"Serenity Painted Death" - - Still Life
"Hope Leaves" - - Damnation
"The Lotus Eater" - - Watershed
"Bleak" - - Blackwater Park
"The Night and the Silent Water" - - Morningrise
"Deliverance" - - Deliverance
"Demon of the Fall" - - My Arms, Your Hearse
"The Drapery Falls" - - Blackwater Park
It was quite a good set, though they didn't play some of their older material very well. They kind of butchered "The Grand Conjuration" and "Serenity Painted Death".
I was also kind of hoping to hear more off of their new album, Watershed; particularly "Burden", "Porcelain Heart" and/or "Hessian Peel". They even started playing "Hessian Peel" only to stop mid-intro. Mike then said, "sorry guys...that's not the song we're playing."
Bastard...it's my favorite song off that album...lol.
Mikael Akerfeldt was absolutely hilarious. He's probably the funniest and most chill front man around, and is definitely the best I've ever seen personally. To put it plainly, he's got joke.
Finally hearing "Demon of the Fall" live was quite a treat, though I was surprised that they didn't play it as an encore as they normally do. Nevertheless, hearing "The Drapery Falls" once again live, and even more so as an encore was absolutely amazing. I love that song.
The Wiltern Theatre seems to have problems, though. Accoustically, I think I can safely say that it's a piece of shit. On top of that, Opeth didn't set their sounds very well, and at times crossed over each other, bleeding each other out. Towards the latter half of the show, the sound improved; particularly the bass. For the first few songs, you couldn't hear Mendez playing at all. Sad.
Even though I've never seen him live, I must say that I already miss Martin Lopez's playing. Not to say that Axe is a bad drummer, but it was a little bit disappointing to see him change around some of the parts originally written by Lopez.
Aside from that, I must say the show was amazing. I knew all the songs, and I was completely drawn into the music. A particular treat was "Hope Leaves"...in my opinion the most beautiful song off of the Damnation album, and just a damn good song in general.
I hope they tour the US again soon.
Does anyone else here listen to and love Opeth?
 
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I used to listen to them, but grew weary of 10+ minute songs that were basically the same throughout
I still listen to the song Harvest once in a while though ^^ I like that one
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No Advent? T_T
Then again, I don't see any morningrise songs on there 
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On October 10 2008 12:59 blabber wrote:
I used to listen to them, but grew weary of 10+ minute songs that were basically the same throughout
I still listen to the song Harvest once in a while though ^^ I like that one
Hmm, I disagree. Some of their songs do seem a bit needlessly drawn out, but one of the reasons why I'm continually impressed with them is that they can keep my attention for ten minutes at a time, lol. Particularly with the album Blackwater Park, you really get the sense that they're using those ten minutes to fully explore and present their ideas.
I dunno, though. That's just me.
ps...ironically, "Harvest" is not among their songs I'm particularly fond of...haha.
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used to be a fan, but not so much anymore after i heard scott henderson + others
lol, most of the time you cant hear mendez very well anyway on the recordings (i guess live is a different story) which got me pretty pissed off at akerfeldt for ignoring such a sweet instrument
i also liked lopez and his bossa nova style playing, i still think they he and axe use way too much of that double pedal, hi hat to keep time bullshit, he has some good fills and beats but overall lots of boring drumming on the records.
mike also CANNOT solo...his style is really typical, boring cheesy pentatonic/bluesy stuff that sounded good, about 30years ago, but now all his solos are like that and its just a pain to listen to.
i agree, the 10-12minute songs is a waste of time when you are just playing long phrases with repetition, i can understand jazz groups like miles with 30+ minute songs because theres alot of improvisation and less repetition, but opeth cant do that and they get boring pretty fast
imo my favourite songs are the short sweet ones like benighted
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I saw a very similar setlist of theirs over the summer, it was fucking amazing!!!
Bleak and The Drapery Falls were particularly good live.
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Yeah, Congratulations for seeing this great show.
And nice to hear that they played more than 2 hours !!! 
I like Opeth, too but I saw them live only once for half an hour (festival). Anyway they impressed me alot! Setölist seems to be good,too.
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On October 10 2008 13:18 JohnColtrane wrote:
used to be a fan, but not so much anymore after i heard scott henderson + others
lol, most of the time you cant hear mendez very well anyway on the recordings (i guess live is a different story) which got me pretty pissed off at akerfeldt for ignoring such a sweet instrument
i also liked lopez and his bossa nova style playing, i still think they he and axe use way too much of that double pedal, hi hat to keep time bullshit, he has some good fills and beats but overall lots of boring drumming on the records.
mike also CANNOT solo...his style is really typical, boring cheesy pentatonic/bluesy stuff that sounded good, about 30years ago, but now all his solos are like that and its just a pain to listen to.
i agree, the 10-12minute songs is a waste of time when you are just playing long phrases with repetition, i can understand jazz groups like miles with 30+ minute songs because theres alot of improvisation and less repetition, but opeth cant do that and they get boring pretty fast
imo my favourite songs are the short sweet ones like benighted
Hmm...I thought Opeth did a better job of making the bass heard than most bands...I'm comparing them to other metal bands, btw. I don't know a whole lot of other prog bands, and I don't venture much into virtuoso style players...and even less into jazz.
I prefer Lopez over Axe, personally...Axe's style seems to be a bit more movement-oriented, but yeah, I liked the latin/jazz influences Lopez had.
I can agree with Akerfeldt's solos, though...he doesn't venture out of his comfort zone very much...but at the very least, they always fit the song pretty nicely. Akesson's at least a change for the band, even if he's a bit more shred, it would seem.
As for song length...I think this is preference as well...enough so I won't comment.
Keep in mind, though...these guys are a metal band, haha. I'm not sure it's fair to compare them so closely to jazz, which seems to be your preference. That's my opinion, anyway.
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On October 10 2008 16:11 PH wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2008 13:18 JohnColtrane wrote:
used to be a fan, but not so much anymore after i heard scott henderson + others
lol, most of the time you cant hear mendez very well anyway on the recordings (i guess live is a different story) which got me pretty pissed off at akerfeldt for ignoring such a sweet instrument
i also liked lopez and his bossa nova style playing, i still think they he and axe use way too much of that double pedal, hi hat to keep time bullshit, he has some good fills and beats but overall lots of boring drumming on the records.
mike also CANNOT solo...his style is really typical, boring cheesy pentatonic/bluesy stuff that sounded good, about 30years ago, but now all his solos are like that and its just a pain to listen to.
i agree, the 10-12minute songs is a waste of time when you are just playing long phrases with repetition, i can understand jazz groups like miles with 30+ minute songs because theres alot of improvisation and less repetition, but opeth cant do that and they get boring pretty fast
imo my favourite songs are the short sweet ones like benighted Hmm...I thought Opeth did a better job of making the bass heard than most bands...I'm comparing them to other metal bands, btw. I don't know a whole lot of other prog bands, and I don't venture much into virtuoso style players...and even less into jazz. I prefer Lopez over Axe, personally...Axe's style seems to be a bit more movement-oriented, but yeah, I liked the latin/jazz influences Lopez had. I can agree with Akerfeldt's solos, though...he doesn't venture out of his comfort zone very much...but at the very least, they always fit the song pretty nicely. Akesson's at least a change for the band, even if he's a bit more shred, it would seem. As for song length...I think this is preference as well...enough so I won't comment. Keep in mind, though...these guys are a metal band, haha. I'm not sure it's fair to compare them so closely to jazz, which seems to be your preference. That's my opinion, anyway.
in some songs its pretty audible, like in the drapery falls, but alot of the time it seems to me like akerfeldt just has mendez double the guitar and then lowers him in the mix. in general bass is pretty downplayed in metal (in general).
i like lopez's style more than axe but he seems like a capable dude anyway so im not worried that he wont be able to handle i guess any stuff that they want to do, just maybe he wont have beats the same as lopez.
the only reason i bag the song length is because it seems like either the songs are just long for the sake of being long or they have some variation but it just seems like really bad rambling and no cohesion. alot of the stuff sounds like random riffs thrown together or lots of repetition (on the new album, they have alot of standard sort of forms, but with REALLY long bridges and interludes, and then some more chorus repetition). i dunno, that stuff just gets boring. the only reason i compared it to jazz is because its more fluid and theres alot of room to improvise around the theme or melody or whatever, so theres alot of like you know 'oh, whats he gonna do next? is he gonna go diatonic or tritone substitute or what?' whereas with opeth u either know whats gonna happen or its gonna be completely different and not remotely interesting.
i pick on their long songs primarly because they are either repetitive or could function even better as smaller songs broken up.
akesson is pretty good, when he first joined i thought he would make a hash of things and would be notorious for playing more notes than he had to, and just in general being a wanker but so far it hasnt been so bad. hes had some nice parts, too. i think i preferred peter though
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Yeah, metal generally completely butchers the bass, or, more often than not, simply has them there to back up the rhythm guitar. That's actually in the majority of rock bands out there who have two guitars. -____-
As for song length, I see that a lot in their older albums, but past Still Life, I don't think they did too badly. I'm not particularly knowledgeable in music theory and such...I'm limited to common sense and an ear for aesthetic (to sound pretentious about it)...lol.
I dunno...on the whole, the repetition and song lengths don't bother me (except maybe the last riff that they repeat for like ~3min on the song "Deliverance"). But maybe I'm just too fanboy... :X
I dunno.
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yeah but do you think that some of the longer songs would flow better on the album if they were split up? some just seem to jump from one part to the next really hard. yeah, i dont really like deliverance much either, that part at the end was really bad and there was alot of repeats during the whole song. they could have got away with a 7minute song but its like what, double that more or less?
yeah i didnt mean to throw around that theory cuz i know akerfeldt doesnt care about it, i was just trying to show what i meant about the suprise and all
also, not trying to badmouth metal bass or anything, i think its got a way to go but most genres are like that. if you are familiar with stuff like bebop, its just the same walking bass line over and over with the same swing rhythm again and again and that drives me insane too. its cuz metal has alot of talent but not everyone gets to show it because its like, guitar-focussed. id like to see more bands compose with space for the bass to solo, the keys to solo etc, and maybe some more intertwining melodies rather than just a block with everyone playing the same thing (whats the point of 2 guitars if they only ever play the same stuff until a solo?)
im hoping for a jaco of the metal scene to appear and revolutionize the way bass is seen lol
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Haha, I definitely understand where you're coming from...but I guess my metal roots allow me to tolerate it. lol
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yeah lol i know what you mean, ive played guitar all my life and nothing else so i used to not give a shit about bass, didnt like keyboards or anything lol...and then i found people like coltrane, marcus miller, gary willis etc. and started to enjoy those instruments much more (as my interest in stuff like funk and jazz fusion grew)
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EPT
