Kamelot

Live at The City National Grove

Anaheim, CA

May 5th, 2018

Review and photos by Travis Baumann

Kamelot are renowned for their symphonic and often romantic take on power metal. Formed in 1991 this year saw the release of their twelfth album, "The Shadow Theory" and they are currently touring in support of this excellent release.

At the heart of Kamelot is Thomas Youngblood, founding member and guitarist who has guided the band through the years. Joining him are Tommy Karevik on lead vocals, Sean Tibbetts on bass guitar, Oliver Palotai on keyboards, Alex Landenburg on drums, and Lauren Hart from Once Human lending both the melodic female vocals and the harsh growled vocals.

They opened up the set with their amazing single from the latest album, "The Phantom Divine (Shadow Empire)" which features Lauren's voice combing to great effect with Tommy's melodic clean vocals. This song was fantastic live and lived up to the awesome video they put out for it earlier this year.

They went back to one of my favorite songs for the second with "Rule the World" from the "Ghost Opera" album. They followed up with "Insomnia" from their previous album "Haven" which was perfectly performed.

They did two of my all-time favorite Kamelot tracks back to back with "The Great Pandemonium" followed by "When the Lights Are Down", already making this a stellar concert and they were only five songs in so far.

They continued to play the fan favorites with "End of Innocence", "Veil of Elysium", and "Here's to the Fall". "Ravenlight" led in to a massive drum solo while the rest of the band took a breather.

They came back out in force with one of their heavier and more malevolent pieces, "March of Mephisto" with Lauren Hart showing her extreme metal talents voicing the harsh vocals originally performed by Shaggrath from Dimmu Borgir on the release thirteen years prior.

"Amnesiac" came next followed by a really special treat with "Sacrimony (Angel of Afterlife)" having tour mates' Delain lead singer Charlotte Wessels joining Lauren and Tommy on stage for an amazing three way vocal showcase.

A symphonic interlude with Oliver performing a keyboard solo segued into "Forever" with guest guitarist Herman Li of Dragonforce fame joining the fray before the band concluded with the audience favorite, "Liar Liar (Wasteland Monarchy)" to close out the night.

It was an amazing performance as Kamelot always presents. These guys are consummate professionals and always bring a perfect showing and tonight was no different. A superb choice of songs covered the gambit of all of my favorite albums and still gave enough of the latest album to feel fresh and new, I highly recommend Kamelot and a good place to start is checking out the video for "Phantom Divine".

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