Source: Graham Berry
Tonight emits an air of deja vu as it was only a few months ago we were stood in the same spot in the Kentish Town forum watching Coheed and Cambria bring their show to London. Tonight’s a little different though, as it’s a Reading and Leeds festival warm-up show ahead of their main stage performances in a few days time.
With the show taking place on one of the hottest days of the summer, the sweltering venue is a little more subdued than we’ve seen before. That is until Coheed and Cambria themselves step on stage. Despite their tour earlier this year, this isn’t a band who strut onto stages in the UK very often, so it’s always a special occasion.
Opening with ‘Ghost’ from latest album Color Before The Sun, it’s clear that whether Coheeds material was written twenty years ago or last year, the audience still connect with it the same. It’s a slightly unusual choice to play an acoustic number as your starting point for a show, but it eases the crowd gently in and shows of the incredible vocals of frontman Claudio Sanchez.
Source: Graham Berry
Tonight’s sixteen track setlist is littered with tracks from Color Before The Sun, six in fact. Their festival sets are set to be much shorter, so today is the chance to explore their newer material and win audiences on side, which they do with every note and every word.
Half an hour in the heat is too much, even for Claudio, as he ties up his trademark bouffant hair, so for once we can see his face all through the set. The thing about Coheed isn’t just the fact that they write great music and perform it with even more vigor than on record, it’s the showmanship. There are no cheesy shout outs asking if the crowd are having a good time (that’s evident just by looking out) and there are no pleas for everyone to scream for them. They know what they do best and crack on with their music.
Source: Graham Berry
During the three song encore a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Drain You’ is slipped in, but for such an iconic track it doesn’t exude the amount of excitement you’d expect. But the crowd seem to be reserving energy and eagerly awaiting the closing track ‘Welcome Home’.
With a fundamental ability as a rock band to create a catchy pop hook that can appeal to a huge scope of people, they could be the heaviest thing a pop princess loves, or the lightest thing a metalhead loves, but they appeal to both. With the huge riffs of ‘No World For Tomorrow’ and the nostalgic kick of ‘Blood Red Summer’, it’s clear that Coheed’s musical journey is far from over.
