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The starting shot for the Death Worldtour was on November 9 near
home, read: Tampa, Florida. And as often happens with the introductory
show, some things go wrong. Like the truck with Death's equipement
arriving to the venue at 8PM- by which time the concert should already
have begun. It was long debated whether or not the show should be
canceled, but eventually it was decided that it was best to go on.
Therefore all bands had to play without a soundcheck this in a venue
that because of the acoustic circumstances was difficult for a soundman
anyway.
Anyway, Viogression was on stage around 10.30PM to welcome the 400
visitors with a 25 minute long cross section of their recently released
debut Expound And Exhort. Colleguae Trojan once, in his LP-review,
described the sound of Viogression (very striking) as sleep inducing.
Although it has to be said that they sound live a bit tighter than
on vinyl, but that doesn't conceal the lesser quality of the songs.
Uninspired noise, and a dull stage performance, in short: a poor
image and the fans didn't know what to do with Viogression either.
What Pestilence showed next was, compared to Viogression, like from
another planet. Frontman Patrick Mameli grabbed the microphone and
roared 'The Pest is back', and on it went. For 50 Minutes the Dutch,
strengthened with Atheist's Tony Choy on bass (playing with Pestilence
the entire tour), showed exactly what that meant. Besides some older
tracks like 'Out Of The Body', 'Defy The Master' or 'Suspended Animation'
a lot of new songs from the new album 'Testimony Of The Ancients'
were played as well, 'Twisted Truth', 'Stigmatized' and 'Lost Souls'.
The audience got completely crazy and it can be said that Pestilence
walked all over them, nothing more and nothing less. Mainly because
of the presentation of the band, especially the constant head banging
of bassist Tony Choy, and of course because of Patrick Mameli, who
as frontman both optically as for the singing hardly can be surpassed.
His performance from A to Z was pure aggression and that's how it
should be. Madness!
And then in the early hours Death came on at last.'Suicide Machine'
was a perfect preamble, followed by 'Born Dead', 'Altering The Future',
'Left To Die', 'Denial Of Life', 'Living Monstrosity', 'Pull The
Plug', 'Flattening Of Emotions', 'Zombie Ritual', 'Open Casket',
'Lack Of Comprehension' and of course 'Leprosy'. After that it was
almost done, mainly because of the late hour and the numerous technical
problems the band had. Despite it all Death wasn't put out and at
least offered an appealing show, especially bassist Skott Carino
with his energetic movements and his excellent bass playing was
very convincing, but also Chuck Schuldiner seemed to have improved
compared to earlier shows. He wasn't as listless as he used to be
on stage, he even moved his head every now and then. But above all
he communicated with the audience, something that used to be very
rare. He appologized more than once for the delay and greeted some
present musicians and left an overall likeable impression.
Summarizing it can be concluded that Pestilence, given the circumstances,
came out best, but Death definitely didn't disappoint and in any
case is ready for the X-mas festivals. |
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