Coheed And Cambria at Carling Academy Islington

I have just been to one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen on stage.

The Coheed and Cambria gig at the Carling Academy Islington was simply mind-blowing.

I arrived at the venue around 30 minutes before 7 which is when the gates open. The line was still relatively short. The gates opened at exactly 7, earlier than it did back when I saw The Used there which was good since it was a bit chilly standing outside.

Being one of the first people inside (first 50), the floor was quite empty but after 10 minutes it was already filling up fast. By the time I was on my second beer you could hardly walk to the bar without navigating carefully through the crowd. Thankfully, I was still able to go back to the spot I had earlier which was quite close to the stage.

The support band was The Future. They were so-so. A little entertaining but nothing really special. I checked their page on Last.fm and listened to a couple of their songs before the gig and wasn’t impressed. This was slightly changed when I saw them onstage, they sounded a little better. Seriously, the Last.fm page lists four bands with the same name. If I was in a band with a name someone else in the world has, I would think of something different, something really unique. It is kinda cool though saying “We are The Future”.

Coheed and Cambria took a little while before they started. They had this one roadie which tested every instrument on stage. After a pretty long wait, the band came out and just started performing.

The set list for the night was just spectacular, they kept on singing one song after the other without saying a word like the name of the song or the name of the band. When a song was finished, they just continued with the next. I believe Claudio only said something after the fifth song. It was quite a long set as well which included the best songs across the three albums including new songs. Each song was equally brilliant and sounded crystal clear. Notables would be Ten Speed, 33, Devil In Jersey City, In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth, and of course the mind-fuck of an encore The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut with an absolutely stunning drum solo.

As for the band, you could clearly see that they were really enjoying themselves and rocking out hard. That is when Claudio pulled back and tied his hair. With his hair untied, you wouldn’t be able to see his face. All the hair actually reminded me of Cousin Itt from the Addams Family.

I sure hope they would perform in London once the new album is out. They simply sound amazing both on record and live.

Also, Carling Academy Islington is officially my most favorite venue. It is situated in a decent part of London (unlike Brixton), it holds a nice number of people and the sound system absolutely makes any band shine, even The Future.

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Now playing: Coheed And Cambria – The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut
via FoxyTunes

~ by stingeyes on September 28, 2007.