TESSERACT – Oslo – John Dee

One of my ‘must see live’ bands was ‘Animals as Leaders’, and few occasions had already passed by me, but this time, when they played as support for TesseracT in Oslo, I put everything else aside and went to the concert. The evening was supposed to be started by Navene K, a one man army band by the Animals as Leaders and former Animosity drummer. To my friend and my surprise, this was canceled and Animals as Leaders had already started when we got to the venue. Luckily, they either played longer (to cover for the time for Navene K) or we got in somewhat early in the concert, as we managed to catch quite a decent amount of songs.

It was one of the times I’ve seen John Dee, the small Oslo venue, so packed. It was extremely hot in there and it was almost impossible for me to find a spot from where I could actually see what was happening on the stage. Once I managed that, I was really fascinated to see that only two people manage an amount of strings on their guitar/bass enough to cover for a band with way more members. And the speed/accuracy that they play them with. It feels like they’re trying to perfect the sound from their CD sometimes, even if one might think it’s impossible to reproduce those songs on the stage. The guys are so talented, that nothing seems too hard and the best solution was to just close my eyes and enjoy the madness of the sounds, the harmonies, fast melodies, softer tempos, unearthly drum rhythms and, most of all, the insanely loud bass that made every inch of your body tremble. The bonus was the fact that whenever I was looking back at the stage, I noticed Tosin Abasi with a wide smile on his face. And as long as the band seems to have fun, there’s almost nothing to complain about. Except that they stopped playing.

The British band Tesseract took over the stage gathered everyone in front of the stage. It was nice to see some young kids jumping and headbanging, as it’s not an often sight at metal concerts in Norway. I had seen the band live sometime in March, headlining a festival evening and having another singer, so I spent a good amount of time at the beginning of the concert trying to figure out if it was the same singer or not. According to web sources it turned out they have a returning vocalist, Daniel Tompkins, a really excellent vocalist, but for another band. I loved the slow, deep groove of their music, the excellent – and complex – instrumental parts and lovely distortions. They have these elemens well blended all along their songs. But for me personally, the vocal choice doesn’t make any sense. At some point I decided to swim through the crowd and maybe get rid of the mad bass vibrations in the stomach, but due some personal reason I lost all interest in the remaining part of the concert. So I was quite relieved when it turned out to only have lasted one hour. I am left with mixed feelings about the band itself, so I’m still willing to give them another try. Also in a venue with an adequate light for their show, as the light in John Dee was really annoying and killed the mood from the very first song.