Sonata Arctica – Cologne; March 26th 2011

First time I saw Sonata Arctica was at Ankkarock in 2008. I liked them, so I made my way to Cologne, expecting to listen to the concert from the back of the building. To my surprise, I easily made it to front row, surrounded by real fans who knew every word to every song. Me? I smiled, enjoyed and didn’t sing along.

But before Sonata Arctica hit the stage, there were two support acts to listen to, the Norwegian Triosphere and the Italian Labyrinth. I enjoyed both, but would listen to neither at home – I am just not a metal fan. Labyrinth were more interesting in my opinion, because they moved about and interacted more with the audience.

It took until 10:00 p.m. before the real show started. A digital countdown showed us the seconds to showtime, the intro started and they appeared on stage. The audience was into it from the first song, singing along every word, sometimes so loudly that singer Tony enjoyed taking a break and letting us do the work.

The show was good, the guys seemed to have fun on stage and Tony turned out not only a great showman, but also a storyteller. Hearing about a weird accident with his first car that involved pieces of safety glass ending up in his underwear had us all laughing hard. He had clearly come to entertain, even tried rapping at one point and stage-dived into the crowd. The others, guitar player Elias, bass man  Marko, keyboarder Henrik and drummer Tommy created an amazing sound and some great solos.

All in all it was a fun night for me.

Setlist

Flag In The Ground
The Last Amazing Grays
Juliet
Replica
Blank File
As If The World Wasn’t Ending
Paid In Full
Victoria’s Secret
instrumental part
The Misery
Full Moon
In Black And White

Encores
Caleb
Don’t Say A Word
The Truth Is Out There