Swallow the Sun @ Newcastle Academy 2, 5th December 2009

Oops - I wrote this before Christmas and forgot to post it for some reason! Here it comes...

Rounding off my most active gigging year ever was one of the lowest key shows of all, a veritable mini-lith (see what I did there?!) of Finnish doom-y goodness in Newcastle’s lovely little teeny tiny Academy 2. Unsurprisingly, it was even quieter than it had been a month previous for Paradise Lost and Katatonia, which was a shame as in my opinion, there were some gems on offer. I arrived early to escape the throng of slightly drunken football supporters staggering to the Bigg Market so caught the whole show – win win! Omnium Gatherum were first up. A melodic death six-piece with elements of thrash, they were a solid opener, playing a decent 40 minute set and getting the crowd warmed up, literally.

Next on were Insomnium. People seemed overly excited about this band; (I overheard a guy outside the venue afterwards saying he could die happy now!) the head-banging was fast, furious, and quite well choreographed both from the audience and the band, who themselves were juggernaut-heavy, pulling out a fine selection of songs from their latest album ‘Across the Dark’ and some from their previous offerings which went down a treat amongst the metal-hungry faithful. Really good stuff. I felt like I was really getting my money’s worth!

Swallow the Sun sloped onto the stage somewhat apologetically, before explaining that their drummer had been injured earlier in the day and wasn’t yet back from hospital, so Insomnium’s diminutive sticksman would be sitting in for him. They also said something or other about Omnium Gatherum’s keyboard player – who I think was standing in for theirs, although I’ve no idea where he was. Maybe he was too depressed to play. That’s what you get for being in a doom band. Sadly it was not the only hiccup in a set fraught with technical mishappery, including a persistent niggling and eventually knackered guitar and the sudden emergence around halfway through of the actual drummer, who seemed alright despite his injury. The heart and soul of the performance was delivered by lead guitarist Juha Raivio and bassist Matti Honkonen who were great to watch, as even lead singer Mikko Kotamaki seemed affected by the lacklustre crowd and the various other issues. I was really surprised to look behind me and see that the majority of Insomnium’s audience had retreated as I would have assumed that the headline band were the main draw, as they were for me, but it seems I was mistaken.

Despite everything, I thought the band sounded great. Highlights of their set included two songs from the beautiful ‘Plague of Butterflies’ EP, and tracks from latest release ‘New Moon’. The bass playing was mesmerising, the vocals were absolutely spot on, even the stand-in drummer did a really good job. It was just a shame as they really didn’t seem happy with how it went but these things can’t be helped. I will be there whenever they next play over here and hopefully will see a top-of-their-game Swallow the Sun – which based on tonight’s performance really will be a sight (and sound!) to behold.