Messed!Up
I’ve never been a fan of gothic metal. It has always been there at the fringe of my music taste, not far from goth rock, but something has been missing. However, there is one exception.
Back in 2002, an Italian friend popped by my flat in Bristol for a coffee and forgot a bag of records he’d just bought at the local record store, and one of the albums was Lacuna Coil’s third album, Comalies. I still remember listening to “Heaven’s a Lie” (still my favorite Lacuna song), “Daylight Dancer”, and “Tight Rope” that night and walking down to the same record store two days later to buy the album myself. For the next ten years, I was a devoted listener and bought the next three albums, Karmacode, Shallow Life, and Dark Adrenalin,e before my music interest went in another direction. But I never got the chance to see Lacuna Coil live – until they popped by Hamburg to play songs off their latest album Sleepless Empire.
Lacuna Coil emerged from the shadows, vocalists Andrea Ferro and Cristina Scabbia lagging behind a bit, and took command of the stage immediately with that sort of energy that has defined their legacy for over two decades. This type of entrance effectively portrays the band as individuals, an idea bolstered as they roared into the opening number “Layers of Time”. Cristina Scabbia’s powerful voice soared effortlessly above the wall of guitars, cutting through the damp atmosphere at Markthalle (a full Markthalle is like a full sauna). It’s the interplay between Scabbia and Ferro that makes Lacuna Coil stand out; the mix of growling mixed with operatic, melodic singing creates a unique identity. This band put on such an incredible show with strong vocals, amazing guitars, and gut-punching drums.
A standout moment for me was when they played ‘Heaven’s a Lie’, my favorite song since they released Comalies back in 2002. Hearing it live for the first time threw me back to a time when life was different and a lot easier, even if it was a remake and not the original version. The audience finally woke up. Although the new album Sleepless Empire is on the heavier side of their collected works and on the best albums they’ve released in the last decade, many of their fans here tonight seem to be here for the older songs.
However, it’s at this point that the night takes a nasty turn. Cristina is an amazing and takes time to talk to people in between some of the songs (I guess to cool down as well), but after ‘Oxygen’ one of those rare and weird moments you don’t want to experience happened: an inebriated unhappy middle-aged German man loudly complaining about merch prices, especially the exclusive double album edition of Comalies including two CD’s + signed by all the band members for a 100€. Sure, it’s a hefty price but a) it’s exclusive, b) given what you get for the price, it’s not much (probably worth 150€ at Discogs at the end of the year). And he never stopped shouting ‘Fuck off’ even when everyone booed at the top of their voices. Cristian took time to explain and even offered the man to come up on stage to talk about it, but I’ve had enough. That sort of killed my enthusiasm to stay, and I left.
Luckily, I have two more Lacuna Coil gigs coming up on this tour, in countries where miserable middle-aged German men are scarce, and I’m quite sure it will be a better experience. From what I saw during the first 13-14 songs, I would easily pay up for that exclusive box.
See you soon!
