U.D.O. / Primal Fear / Iron Fire - Oslo - 18.11.07

So I finally got to see U.D.O. last night, but unfortunatly that was a mixed affair. But more on that later.

The first band up was Iron Fire from Denmark. Now, I own the bands first 2 CD's, and remembered that I liked them. Bu their 2 latest Cd's ahave escaped me, and I don't think I've missed too much. Their brand of true metal was not as good as I'd hoped for, and they totally failed to escite the very few people that had shown up. The riffing was good enough, but a total lack of image, and a singer that sounded very "flat" just made them boring to watch.

Now Primal Fear on the other hand!!! In 3 weeks, there will be 1 year since I saw Ralf and the boys live the last time. The venue was bigger the last time, and they almost blew Helloween off stage then. And they totally delivered yesterday too. The venue was very intimate, and we could almost smell Ralf's hairy armpits from the second row! A good mix of songs from most of their albums did the trick, and there is no stopping them when they deliver one stronger song after the other. "Iron Fist In A Velvet Glove", "Seven Seals", Metal Is Forever", "Batallions Of Hate", "Rollercoaster", yeah they were all there, almost. They totally left out my favorite album, Black Sun, from the setlist! And no, "Chainbreaker" and "Silver & Gold" either. Oh well, who am I to complain when seeing one of the better power metal bands doing such a great job for us Norwegians. The crowd had quadriplified since Iron Fire, and I would guess that 250 people were there, maybe 300.

Then it was U.D.O.'s turn, and now even more people had show up. I guess he still brings alot of old Accept fans to his shows, as most people there seemed to talk about him as the singer for Accept. But to tell you the truth, I couldn't care less if we didnæt get to here 1 Accept tune this night, U.D.O. the band have more then enough qiality material to bring us. Still, about 40% of the set was old Accept tunes. "Breaker", "Midnight Mover" and "Princess of the Dawn" is cool and all, but they just can't match "Mastercutor", "Vendetta", "The Bullet And The Bomb", "24/7" and so on! The band was VERY tight, and it was great to see how fun they had up on stage. BUT, there was one real big problem with it all. The sound was painfully loud. now, I've seen hundreds of metal concerts, and I've only witnessed 1 other concert with such an aweful sound, and it was when Motörhead opened for Dio many years ago. Then I spent the entire concert with my hands in front of my ears. But yesterday, I just had to leave. I'm not sure what this problem is called in english (is it too much teble?), but the sound just pierced through my ears, and it hurt. So we left. It was truly a shame, becasue I had been looking forward to this show. As I write this my ears are still ringing loud, and I think my tinnitus has gotten worse because of yesterdays concert.

I saw U.D.O. with Saxon some years ago and the sound was great. Perhaps it was the venue. Either way, that sucks that you had to miss part of the show.

ult

Awesome! Too bad about Iron Fire sucking...I like they're CDs. At least the other bands made up for it!

I saw a show years ago, can't remember who right now, but I had the same problem; the music was so loud that it was like needles to my eardrum. Standing there with my fingers in my ears is stupid, so we just left. It sucked. Not sure how the sound guy couldn't hear how loud it was.

I guess it would have helped with earplugs. But it is usually not a problem for me. And isnce my friend had the exact same problem this night, we just decided we'd had enough.

And, yes, I think the venue was part of the problem, but the sound guy must take the biggest blame. Primal Fear was just fine, but when U.D.O. hit the stage, everything seemed louder, and he hept turning the nobs even higher!

Hmm... I saw this show a month ago in Frankfurt but without Iron Fire. The sound of Primal Fear and U.D.O. was both very good there. I preferred Primal Fear that evening as you can read in my summary of that show, but U.D.O. was very good as well with a perfect sound. Really a pitty for you...