Wow, this concert was amazing! It was one of two concerts of Pain of Salvation in Germany as part of the second leg of their World Tour. It was quite a small venue - the Colos Saal in Aschaffenburg, which has a capacity of about 500 people - and the place was crowded that night. A lot of prog bands perform here - Nektar, Spock's Beard and IQ will perform here later this year.

BTW: Although my home town (Erlangen) is only 180 kilometers away from Aschaffenburg, it was quite a journey ... I currently don't have a car, and trains are scheduled very sparsely during the night. The trip to the concert took about three hours, and after the concert I waited about 3 hours at the Aschaffenburg station and then travelled about two hours back to Nuremberg and there I waited another hour for the next train ... so although the concert was finished by 0:30, I arrived at my home at 07:00. But it's like I had a choice ... this is PAIN OF SALVATION!

The support band was quite good - Dark Suns from Leipzig. They play an interesting mix of Gothic Metal and Prog, their musicianship was excellent, particularly the timing and the interplay between the guitarists and the rhythm section.

Dark Suns played with a traditional stage monitor system, which was completely removed after their set. Pain of Salvation used an in ear monitor system, and it's amazing how much room there is on a small stage when there's only a drum set, one keyboard and the mic stands. Both guitarists used Line6 Pod XT floorboards, and as far as I could see the bassist was also using digital equipment only.

Pain of Salvation played a remarkable set - very balanced with old and new songs, lasting almost 2 hours. They started the show with "Used", and it was amazing for me to see them play their songs live as they are on the album, with little changes. Only the songs of "Be" used overdubs for the orchestra parts and the female vocals, which blended with the live instruments very nicely. After Used they played the main motive of Be, and then one song of each of their other albums in chronological order. I'm still trying to remember the exact set list, unfortunately I forgot to bring a pen and paper ... but I think that the gig will be reviewed in the Rock Hard magazine anyway, so I'll give you an update as soon as I have the definitive list.

Anyway ... after those songs Daniel left the stage and the intro of Be was played on a small video screen at the center of the stage. BTW: The video screen was used throughout the show, with footage of the Be DVD and their videos, played in sync to their performance (or the reverse). After the intro of Be Daniel reentered the stage in his Mr. Money alter ego, accompanied by a quite handsome woman. The whole band was wearing sunglasses by now, and they played Dea Pecuniae ... amazing. Everything was there ... the intro conversation with the car/hand job/blow job joke, the female vocals ... and in the end Daniel opened a bottle of champagne and soaked the front rows during the finale.

Then they played the Be outro and left the stage ... the audience was not only clapping their hands ... instead of shouting "Zugabe" (encore) as usual, they (we) sang the melody of the Be outro to get the guys back on stage.

And we got three additional songs ... People Passing By (absolutely amazing, one of their best songs), Oblivion Ocean and Nightmist (They extended the free form section at the end ... the drummer and the rest of the band engaging in wild and ridiculous poly rhythms).  

If you have the opportunity to see them live ... go there, don't hesitate!

Sounds amazing Mike.Glad you got to see it.The epic journey to get to the concert and back was definitely worth itPersonally,I would have walked the whole way if I had to.

I bet People Passing By was awesome,one of my favs too.If they played Winning a War I would have lost it,I LOVE that song.

 I also saw Pain os Salvation this year.They played on A38 ship. I walked there in 15 minutes.

 The band played well , they played songs from every album.

 Sadly , they shortened they European tour , so they did not come to my neighbourhood again.

 Maybe on their next tour.