Pagan's Mind Live Report

My 11th gig of the year so far and I've missed a few I fancied as well but still a fairly productive year gig wise with over half the year left to go. Anyway it was my first time seeing Pagan's Mind so I had to make the effort. For once I didn't have a ticket pre-booked and paid on the night to get in. Normally I like to get tickets beforehand to save money and also the possibility of not getting in on the night but to be honest I knew that PM were not going to sell the Underworld out somehow!

They are not THAT big here basically in my estimation and so it proved. The Underworld was probably barely half full, about 250 if you're being generous although all who did turn up witnessed a great show by the Pagan boys.

I missed the first support band who went by the name of RIP Sanity. Quite like that name might have to investigate them a little. I saw most of Neonfly who played a 45 minute set. I saw these guys a few weeks ago supporting Power Quest. They are quite good. I find it hard to pigeonhole them actually. Sometimes they are power metal with an AORey sounding singer, then they have prog tendencies, then they go into complete AOR sounding tunes. There's something about them I'm not quite getting though. Maybe it's the singer. Anyway they are quite good as a support band like I said and they have an album coming out and the best way to judge them I think is on their studio output.

Finally the Pagan lads took to the stage at 8.30pm which is quite early for the Underworld but there was a 10.15 curfew because of some club running after I guess. Anyway plenty of time to listen to some killer prog/power based material from this great band. For a one guitar band they don't half pack some punch let me tell you. The sound in the Underworld last night was absolutely amazing as well last night. It was loud but crystal clear mostly. The band are quite an odd looking bunch. Two portly guys on bass and keys. A nicely hair-cutted shit hot guitarist and the small elfin screamer Nils on the mic. Didn't really catch what the drummer looked like!

As Nils explained between one song and we sort of realised after, he had broken his hip six weeks ago and they had toyed with the idea of cancelling the tour but he decided to soldier on in the end. He has walking very gingerly around the stage for sure though his showmanship and crowd geeing from the waste up was still tip top. The crowd themselves were well into what the band was doing and although this was the first night of the UK tour they were in tip top shape musically speaking if not physically. They played most of their famous hits and a couple of new songs as well of course. The new songs sounded amazing especially Intermission of course which was sung with great power by Nils especially that scream! Enigmatic Mission is also always gonna be great isn't it. Nils' voice is very powerful live although on the odd occasion he was struggling to be heard over the music. They played an awesome instrumental song whose name I don't recall I'm sure you PM fans will know which one. That was just immense.

The encore featured Through Osiris Eyes which is perhaps their most well known song and probably a song they will have to play on every live show they ever do from now until they decide to call it a day.

I'm glad I came to see these guys finally and they didn't disappoint one iota. Their live sound is not far from their amazing produced recorded output at all. They can definitely lay claim to being the best band of this style in Europe at least if not the world and they deserved a far bigger turn out as well but I guess not enough people really know about them which is a shame. Apparently the Snooty Fox gig in Wakefield in two days is going to be broadcast live on the internet. Well worth a watch I'd suspect if you have a good connection.