Opeth - Boulder, CO 5/20/13

I was invited to go see Opeth last night, and I couldn't pass it up. My friend had bought VIP tickets, so we decided to drive up to Boulder early. As we arrived, he suggested that we go check out a record shop because Mikael was known to browse record shops before shows. Lo and behold, as we entered the shop, Mikael was browsing in a back room full of vintage records. Me and my friend were a little starstruck, so I briefly complemented him on his Celtic Frost shirt and his splendid cover of Circle of the Tyrant. We snapped a picture with him, and that was it. While waiting for tickets, I talked to a few fans (one has seen Opeth 10 times, and Yes 60, you read that right, 60! times, and she also knows the bassist for the Neal Morse Band.) outside of the venue. Around an hour later, the Meet and Greet rolled around. The VIP package gave us VIP lanyards/laminates, a t-shirt, a tour book, and a vinyl copy of Heritage that contained two 180g clear LPs. Me and my friend talked to Mikael again, and I discussed why he didn't play with Steven Wilson when he came to Boulder on the 6th. He laughed and said he didn't talk to Steven about it. The rest of the band was also very warm and friendly. Frederik and I talked about the new album, which got me very hyped up. (3 songs written, expect a heavier record than Heritage!) The new keyboardist, Joakim Svalberg, was a really cool guy. Before the show, he was wearing a Mellotron™ shirt, and I struck up a conversation with him about his equipment. He has original tapes from the company transferred into digital versions, and my god they sounded great. Martin M. and Martin A. were also very pleasant, but I didn't talk to them as much. I got my vinyl gatefold signed by all five members, which was brilliant. Onto the show, yeah?

Katatonia, another Swedish band, opened the show. Their brand of doom metal really didn't appeal to me, but it was alright nonetheless. The sound could have been mixed a little better, the guitars were practically inaudible. They played for a solid hour, and we were becoming restless.

Before Opeth came out, the setlist was posted as such:

The Devil's Orchard
Ghost of Perdition
White Cluster
Hope Leaves
Atonement
Deliverance
Heir Apparent
Haxprocess
Demon of the Fall (Acoustic)
The Lines in My Hand

Encore: Blackwater Park

They absolutely killed it. Mikael exhibited so much charisma on stage, and the band brought out a perfect balance of heaviness and lightness in their setlist. Before Heir Apparent, people were freaking out about the removal of Harlequin Forest for Lines. Some others were shouting for The Drapery Falls. Mikael heard this, and said "Okay, I'll play the first verse." However, when he started singing, the crowd sang along even after he cut off. So the crowd (including myself) basically sang the first verse of the Drapery Falls. Brilliant! Also, before Blackwater Park, someone shouted for Black Rose Immortal. Mikael laughed, and said the last time they played it was at a bar in Northern England with just one person in the audience, who was a friend of Mikael's. The acoustic version of Demon of the Fall is spectacular, and the performance of Haxprocess was absolutely gorgeous. On the other side, White Cluster and Deliverance were absolutely brutal! A stunning performance from the entire band overall. They have a few shows left in Arizona and California, so get tickets while you can!

infocat wrote: I saw Opeth (with Katatonia, natch!) fairly soon after Heritage was released, so I didn't feel the need to see this show.  But perhaps I should have!  Mikael is, indeed, a great showman.  Such a sense of humor! Curious; are the growls back (when appropriate)?

The growls are back in full swing, yeah. They brought out some of their heaviest material (ie Deliverance, Heir Apparent). As for the album, Frederik wasn't too specific. He just mentioned "heavy" and "sort of like the last one" so we're thinking something like a Heritage-Watershed combination.