Equilibrium, Lord of the Lost, Nailed to Obscurity, Oceans @ Z7
01.02.2020 @ Z7 Konzertfabrik Pratteln, Switzerland
When you have a Saturday off, you might be able to arrive punctually because tonight Z7 doors open at 17:00 h already. And it seems quite some people overlooked the early start as the club fills up only later.
Right after arrival at Z7, Oceans begin their show at 18h. The Germans have just released their debut «The Sun and the Cold» via Nuclear Blast and visit Switzerland for the first time. The audience enjoys their music but not so much the long talks of singer Timo Rotten – people rather want to forget their sorrows than hear that they are not alone. Still those guys do their job well and make the best of their 30min playtime with their Nu Metal. They have the best light and sound of the evening, unfortunately it should get a lot worse.
Nailed to Obscurity have been playing often at Z7 and deliver once again a good solid show with a lot of power that thrills the audience. For some reason I am less impressed tonight, maybe because the sound is not that great.
Why Lord of the Lost are part of the Renagades Tour is not that clear as their music is so different to the other bands. But basically they are the main reason that I attend this show. Their outfits are always interesting, only this clown theme by Harms tonight does not work that well in my opinion. Lord of the Lost open with «Lament for the Condemned“, followed by „Morgana“ and after that Harms ditches the clown outfit and grabs a guitar. LOTL inspire the crowd, although the sound quality becomes unbearable, almost nothing can be heard besides the bass. Only during the last two songs it gets better and you can fully enjoy „La Bomba“ and „Die Tomorrow“.
Even before Equilibrium even enter the stage, the difficult conditions for photos tonight become clear – fog and even more fog fills the Z7, hence when the band finally starts the show, you can only vaguely spot their silhouettes… and the sound is pretty foggy too, just some random rumbling. Moreover, the second song sees a lot of crowdsurfers already which keeps the security busy, even though there are still many photographers in the pit. Finally when someone realizes that there is now enough fog and the sound improves a bit, the mosh pit gets more violent so that even some medics intervention is required. Therefore not an enjoyable show for me this time, besides the fact that I had preferred Lord of the Lost as headliners – or not being part of this package at all.
