Anathema - Granada, Spain - Sat 6 Nov 2010

Hi all! This is my first live performance review for the site, so be kind!

A very special day for us, we were going to see Anathema for our first time, so me and my wife were reluctant to travel to Granada, spend the day from the afternoon until the concert beggining having beer and 'tapas'.

So there we were, Sala El Tren is quite an appropiate venue for a concert like this, usually good sound and room for maybe six or seven hundred people to see the Canavagh brothers and co on stage. Though I do think they did it well, I didn't care too much for the supporter bands, Peter Carlsen (it seems like a Danny Canavagh,'s friend) and Sloma.

Anathema opened the concert with highlights from Judgement, starting with the soaring Deep, Pitiless, Forgotten Hopes and the f**king great end of Destiny Is Dead. They also played a fantastic version of Lost Control, alternated with the doomy Judgement, Panic, the inseparable Balance and Closer (with vocoder included ;P). Highlights for me were the songs that included Lee Douglas in the line-up. She has a strong beautiful voice that fits Anathema's music perfectly, A Natural Disaster and Temporary Peace were great. Another good moment in the concert was Flying, where Vincent asked people to sing the chorus and, damn it, that was great! Sing along boys and girls!

When it seemed that a lots of music have been played already and I was thinking it couldn't last too much Vincent said something like: "Hey people, have you noticed we have not played any single song from our last album? That's because we're going to play now each and every song".

Yes! They played We're Here Because We're Here from the first to the last note, and let me tell you that was a magnificient idea. Though the final part of the album IMHO lacks a bit of inspiration and is weaker, I find that the first side is wonderful. Especially I was really touched by Summernight Horizon, Dreaming Light (oh my god, so joyful to hear this while holding the hand of the one you love) and the totally winner Everything (Lee here was perfect).

But it wasn't all, in the encore we enjoyed an acoustic version of Are You There? played only by Danny at the guitar (wonderful arpeggio playing), followed by the touching One Last Goodbye (people singing along so well!). The more metalic and passionate Fragile Dreams ended the show.

I have to admit (and so does my wife) that we enjoyed the concert a lot, much more than we anticipate at the door. All in all, I guess they played for more that 2 hours and a half, full of passion and enjoying a lot the stage and the crowd. Great concert, oh yes! 

how i wish i was there...