OPETH + GRAND MAGUS – live at Sentrum Scene
- Posted on 13-02-2025
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The year start concert bonanza is upon us. a lot of tours happening these months, shows on all venues in the city and sometimes even overlapping the same genre so it can have the fans having to pick between two favorites. For Wednesday, February 11th 2025 the choice in Oslo was Opeth or Hellacopters. Luckily, both bands have a solid based of fans so both venues ended up rather full and delivered memorable shows. I chose the Opeth show. I’m not in the Opeth nostalgic category, so I just adore their latest releases and find them an auditive pleasure everytime I stumble upon them in my playlists. The entertainment factor is also high so the press accreditation for covering the show on Sentrum Scene allows me to share with you my impressions from the event.
Support act for the evening was another Swedish act, the heavy metal tri Grand Magus. They mentioned they haven’t played in Norway since like 2016 and that’s probably when I saw them live and I remember enjoying the super cool and true heavy metal show and presence. I never go much into their music though. Will give them another try. I found their songs catchier this time I think and I was nicely impressed by the loud reactions they received from the crowd throughout the evening. It’s nice to see people gathering and cheering for support acts as well. Grand Magus treated us with a bunch of solos, be them bass or guitar. I enjoyed a lot of their bass parts and how the whole groove of it stood out. Their massive riffage has surely a lot of Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Uriah Heep backgrounds, but they found their own way of heavy and deliver it with everything it takes for the show to be as grand as their name.
The changeover went rather quick and allowed us to realize that this Opeth show has a lot of stuff on stage. Besides the massive keyboard setup and drumkit, and a big pile of printed lyrics (?), there were lots of lights and monitors. I was really taken aback by what they were to bring to the show. The whole stage production or well, projections and lights was simply majestic. The visuals from the new album were wittily displayed on the big backdrop and with smaller details on the smaller projection canvas. And then various lights or looping images would play for other songs. I don’t really know if anything came form older Opeth videos, but I highly appreciated the visuals they picked for Sorceress.
Being able to arrive early at the venue, I got myself some nice seats on he lower rows of the balcony. I think it’s one of the few times I didn’t need earplugs at Sentrum Scene. The sound was so clear and rather nice balanced – with an extra level of snare drum. But the vocals just sounded so nicely and then we got treated with the sound of each instrument that had something important to say at various times in the songs. Oh, and the choice of songs. I had checked the playlist from their previous two shows of the tour but only when they started playing some of those very old songs did I realize how I probably never heard them played vefore. At least not “The Night and The Silent Water” and I am not sure about “Häxprocess”. Even if their catalogue spans the duration of maybe 10 concerts, I think they always find a way to put a good playlist together. And now that growls are back, we have again Ghost of Perdition for example. I think the crowd was louder than the band for few seconds when they realized what song is about to play.
We got 4 song from the new album and luckily one of them was the perfect ending song of the album, “A Story Never Told”. What a beauty that one. For one of the songs we got explained how there’s always a chance that their backing track with Ian Anderson’s spoken words doesn’t hit at the right time in the song, since they don’t use click track and trust their drummer. Who is a joy to watch. Well, the whole band is, even if they’re some of the least theatrical bands out there. I think its their pure joy and how genuine they are in loving the music they do. Plus Åkerfeldt’s talks. How can they get old. We happened to have some audience that managed to yell loud enough to even have some sort of dialogue. Meaning the guy kept requesting Blackwater Park and Mikael replied ‘No!’.
For extra ‘entertainment’ or how to better understand the importance of roadies, one of Åkerfeldt’s guitar strings broke quite early in the show. The roadie came prepared with another one – mid song, only had few seconds to make the switch and had to have it perfectly tuned for the slower part. And as soon as the part was done, before the heavier section and solos, Mikael got his initial guitar back. Money well earned. Speaking of guitars, we also got explained how during one of their new songs, they can get very stressed as they have to tune their guitars down mid song, play a bit and then tune back up again. And they did. Stress was not noticeable. But it was fun for us, non guitar geeks, to be able to laugh at that.
All in all, the Opethness was way beyond any expectations. It was majestic. Catch a show or two on this tour. It’s worth any efforts!