Sonata Arctica

Live at the House of Blues

Los Angeles, CA

April 24, 2010

It was great to finally see Sonata on a headlining tour. I have seen them open for other legendary bands like Nightwish and Dragonforce and loved them every time but felt they had way too short of set. This time I not only got to see a full set but one that had many songs they have not played on previous tours and it also gave the audience a chance to enjoy a deeper look into their personalities and stage presence.

They opened the set with “Everything Fades to Gray”, an instrumental intro and took the stage to start with “Flag in the Ground”, one of their hit singles off of their latest album, “Days of Grays”. The audience was well versed in the lyrics to this one and sang along from the get go.

They did “Black Sheep” next which was extremely well received by the crowd. Third up was “Paid in Full” a personal favorite of mine and always a great song live.

I was hoping for more songs off of their newest release, as the last time I saw them they only did one or two so I was very pleased when they played “The Last Amazing Grays”.

As with all of their songs I find a beautiful melancholy aspect that really hits home for me and this song is especially bitter sweet in that today was my birthday and I am not the young pup I once was. People have told me that “their lyrics are too deep” which I laugh at because that is exactly what I am looking for, intelligent, deep and meaningful songs, not just nonsense.

“The Last Amazing Grays” I see paralleling their imagery of the wolf pack and the older wolves preparing for the day when the pack is no longer under their safety and guidance and how they need to bring up the next generation of wolves to deal with the world in order for the pack to survive. This of course is in itself a direct parallel to our own human world and the state of affairs we now find ourselves in.

Tony likes to talk quite a bit between songs and with a longer show, he had more time to banter with the audience which was very amusing. He had a number of funny stories to tell and was very endearing to the audience which opened up their mystique and personalities and made it a very intimate show with lots of smiles on stage and in the audience, so despite their melancholy and sometimes dark storytelling they brought quite a bit of happiness.

Compared to other bands in this genre they had a huge proportion of female audience members who were very excited about the show and sang along to every song. It was nice to see a more diverse crowd as the metal audience can get a bit testosterone heavy and fairly young at that, but Sonata had all age ranges enjoying their performance as well as gender diversity.

The band themselves had a great time trading grins between each other and the audience, at times Tony would run over and play Henrik’s keyboards or strum Elias’ guitars. Marko, their bassist is a bit more somber but still cracked a smile or two throughout the show while Tommy on drums was making faces at the photographers and enjoying himself quite a bit behind his drum kit.

They did a good number of songs from their back catalog such as “Last Drop Falls”, “Full Moon”, “Juliet”, and “8th Commandment”. They also did “Broken” and “Dead Skin” before they finished the main set with “The Cage” and then broke for the encore.

Henrik came back out first and did a lengthy keyboard solo that really showed his chops followed by Elias doing a similarly impressive guitar solo before the entire band returned to the stage.

They did “In Black and White” for the first encore song which is definitely one of my favorites. It was good to see it as an encore as usually it is one of the set openers.

They did one of my other favorites “Don’t Say a Word” next and this version was really cool. It seemed longer than previous shows and had distorted spoken word type parts in amongst the keyboard parts.

They finished off the show with their customary “Vodka” sing along and as the band took their bows the instrumental “Everything Fades to Grey” made a reprise.

It was a great show and great way to spend my birthday to say the least.

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