LINGUA MORTIS SHOWSApril 2007
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Hi RageheadsPeavy here, to report about our latest festival concerts and time of rehearsal together with the "Lingua Mortis Orchestra". The background was the 10th anniversary of our "orchestra phase", which was marked by releases as "Lingua Mortis, XIII and Ghosts" or rather a tour and lots of festival shows with the "Lingua Mortis Orchestra" that time. We have been the first metal band, who melted together both music styles, metal & classic, to a homogeneous and bombastic music. Since that time, many other bands (e.g. Metallica), have imitated that, however, just a few got beyond simplistic background music with a few string surfaces, which you can also do with keyboards. That's 10 years ago, so we thought it was appropriate, to incorporate this topic again in our music, what precipitated also in parts of our last studio album "Speak Of The Dead" (Suite Lingua Mortis) and in some exclusive live shows in this year. So here a report about our anniversary orchestra shows. Thanks for a perfect work to our crew, the sinfonic orchestra of the national music akademy of Minsk (Belarus), Andrei Zubrych, who was a valuable help during the musical prearrangements (as an fantasic pianist anyway) and our brilliant conductor Professor Mikhail Kazinets, and last but not least, I would like to express my personal thanks to Victor, as without his indefatigable engagement the whole project wouldn't be possible. Charly, Andre and myself started on 17th of April. The first station was Minsk in Belarus. There our orchstra is based, and first, intensive rehearsal was announced, at last, our real complex music cannot be transposed just spontaneous with so many musicians. Victor arrived already a week earlier, to work out the musical basis together with the orchestra, and to organize our rental-equipment. We rehearsed in the national philharmony, a patriarchal institution, in which also Victors father Dmitri, one of the most distinguished Russian composers of the present time, is acting. We had scheduled just a week for that, in this time, we worked out song by song, in which the monumental works "Suite Lingua Mortis", the "Lingua Mortis Medley" but also both Bourrees of J.S.Bach (in Victors arrangement, check "Majesty & Passion" and "Soundchaser"), requires most activity. Day by day we became better, so at the end we even had time to rehearse some show elements, like solo parts and jams. Unfortunately, the weather in Minsk became bad again (snow flurry) and expeditiously I caught a cold, which fortunately didn't restricted my volcal performances... |
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24.04.07 - KIEV - UAKiev/Palace of Culture NAU.... To be girt for the large festival shows, time has come to go to the public, to check out the complex project by real concert atmosphere. We first drove to Kiev by train during night. Kiev is the metropole of the Ukraina, also called "golden city", what's illuminating by lots of golden church roofs everywhere in the city. We had rented 2 complete coaches in the train, so the journey had something like a school excursion, there was a brisk bustle in the train, eventually one would like to get in touch with each other... After a short acclimation at the hotel, we quickly went to the hall in Kiev for set up and soundcheck. Here, our technicians were the heros of the hours, as it wasn't easy, to implement the whole to a perfect show. After many work and stress everything was well done and we could celebrate our first orchestra show after 10 years. First, some increased excitement was obvious, and the first song "From The Cradle To The Grave" was some kind of unassertive, but then, the excitement abated, and we enjoyed the bombastic, full sound and we step up song by song. Goose-bums were specially obvious at the orchestra solo parts of both main works. Fantastic, how the boys and girls transposed our music under the direction of Prof. Mikhail Kazinets. The audience appeared numerously, a noticeable enhancement, compared with our last gig in Kiev, and everybody has kittens. Our orchestra wasn't used to such gushily (and loud) reactions, however, they draged along with the good vibes, and rocked together with us. The gigantic choirs at "Higher Than The Sky" wouldn't end, and after the end of the concert, the fans asked for another extra song. We thought, what we could play spontaneously, but at that time, parts of the equipment were already removed, so we had to leave it this way. Whatever, the concert was a great success. |
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25.04.07 - TRAVEL DAYThe next day was planned as travel day. The distance between Kiev and St.Petersburg isn't low, so the orchestra had to do a 24 hours journey by train. We accomplished the distance by plane, to have time for some prearrangements for the next concert. |
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26.04.07 - ST.PETERSBURG - RUSSt.Petersburg/Palace of Culture Lensovet.... Like the show in Kiev, our concert took place in a concert hall, which was completely furnished with chairs. The accoustics turned out to be difficult, so, as well as at the soundcheck and also at the concert, we couldn't reach the optimum, we liked to do. Nevertheless, we had a great show and enthusiastic reactions of the audience showed us, that they liked the show. Even the security people reacted to the enthusiasm and allowed the fans, to stand up from the chairs, opend the press pit, so we could celebrate together. This time, we spontaniously played the extra song "Refuge", which was also enjoyed by the audience, even we played the song without the orchestra, as they didn't had the notes of "Refuge"... |
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27.04.07 - MOSCOW - RUSMoskau/Palace of Culture Gorbunova.... During night, we travelled to Moscow by train. Uninterrupted, we did the set up and soundcheck in the completely renovated Palace of Culture Gorbunova - hall, in which we already played a show in 2001. This time it looked like, that everything runs perfectly with the sound, what was confirmed at the concert also. The sold out hall enjoyed the best out of the 3 concerts of our short tour together with us. Sound, light, mood and delight in playing were perfect. If I compare our performance this time with the concerts of 10 years ago, I recognize an increment of 100%. The orchestra was toning perfectly and played tight to the band in such a way, that it was a real enjoyment of listening (by the way, also visually an adventure). "Higher Than The Sky" developed to an happening with fantastic fan choirs, conducted by Prof. Mikhail Kazinets, perfect jams between guitar and solo violine, just great fun on stage. Again the fans had the pleasure of an extra song ... Now, the large festival shows (Wacken with 100.000 thousand visitors) can come. It was worth it, to go through this sizeable expenditure, we are well-practised now! |
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12.07.07 - MASTERS OF ROCK FESTIVAL - VIZOVICE - CRThe journey to Visovice was again protracted, unfortunately, there's no airport near by, so we arrived at the hotel in the late afternoon. The orchestra members, which came from Minsk by bus, were waiting for us already, the boys and girls are real Rock´n´roll, so easyly they put away such an exhausting journey. At the festival area, we noticed, that's more crowded out as the last years. But when we entered the stage at the evening, we are downright overwhelmed by emotions by the 30.000 fans, who afford us an outstanding welcome. As if they all were waiting for us, the vibes were fantastic right from the beginning. Even some problems with some bad monitor sound and an electrical power outage couldn't spoil the mood. There was so much energy from the audience, that one could conduct a small town with that energy. So finally they didn't let us go without an encore, so we played an superspeed version of Refuge. Unfortunately we didn't had some time to celebrate, as we directly had to start our return journey. Anyway, a concert, which will remain unforgettable. |
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04.08.07 - W:O:A - WACKEN - DOnly topped by this one. Again, we met the orchestra at the hotel and drove to the festival area together. Unfortunately, the organizers didn't supply us enough wardrobes, so the orchestra members had to sidestep into a school near by. But that couldn'd spoil the mood of anybody. Everybody was waiting for the show, eventually, one doesen't play infront of such a huge crowd. Officially, there were 70.000, but inofficially, there should have been about 100.000 visitors. This time, we had enough time for arranging everything on stage, so we could prepare us perfectly. Our crew, with the additional, fantastic orchestra sound engineer Arthur, gave their best, also the Wacken stage crew did an perfect job, so we could undergo our gig on stage with almost CD sound quality. Not only us, but also the bystanding guest and surely the countless fans, one goose skin after the other runs down the back. That was really incredible and we were recompensed with fantastic reactions of the audience. Fortunately, the Wacken film team has recorded everything with lots of cameras, we were enthused by watching the material later on. Unfortunately our record company NB called off an release of a DVD already before (we just had a release of a DVD), but we will check out every alternative, if we can't use the material anywise. Many thanks again to all concerned persons, our fantastic orchestra, our fantastic crew and certainly to all fans, who made these gigs to unforgettable adventures for us! See you soon & RAGE ON!! Peavy Photos by: Konstantin "Bonez" Viktorov (Darkside), Joe Derschka |
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| 25 YEARS ANNIVERSARY TOUR 2009 EUROPA TOUR 1999 | |