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Coheed and Cambria’s Unheavenly Tour visited Manchester Academy in support of the recently released Vaxis Act 1: The Unheavenly Creatures album released in October.
First up though were Chon – a largely instrumental band from California. They came on stage to a very warm welcome from the audience as the venue was already pretty full. We’d not heard of them before so didn’t really know what to expect from them but the audience did seem to enjoy them and did join in on the very last song, however apart from that they did not interact with the audience very much at all. They did seem to be enjoying themselves whilst performing though. Many of the songs did seem very similar to each other, however both of the guitarists were very tight, and seemed to work really well together especially when soloing.
After Chon had finished their set, the venue seemed to fill up even further with people extremely quickly. The venue was packed but surprisingly it was not a completely sold out show even though Coheed’s following are a fairly devoted one.
Coheed had an amazing welcoming when they came on stage and launched into The Dark Sentencer from the new album. One of 5 new tracks littered throughout tonight’s 15 song set list.
They were really powerful, and the audience were participating from the off-set. The lighting was great throughout and really set the atmosphere for the show along with the tight playing and strong vocal performance.
There was a lot of audience participation throughout the whole set, even without encouragement, and the band really entertained the audience with their continuous energy; running around the stage with their instruments and a lot of head banging. I was surprised to see all 3 other members apart from Claudio providing back-up vocals, which was awesome as they all seemed to have great voices.
It has to be mentioned – it is hard to see Claudio’s face as a lot of the time his hair is covering it, like a metal Cousin It or a Tasmanian Devil with a guitar. However the few times you can actually see him you can tell he is very passionate about what he does, smiling a lot throughout the show. Another thing that I found interesting – and really added to the show – were the soundtracks that were played in between songs – they really tied in influences from their new album and kept the audience interested as there was little in the way of chat in between songs.
It was surprising to see Claudio also perform a few songs without his guitar, which also helped to keep the audience engaged right until the end of the show as he was singing right at the front of the stage and seemed to connect with people more. Sound wise the show was amazing – each and every instrument was very clear and you could tell every word Claudio sang.
Closing the set with In Flames they left the crowd buzzing. This latest instalment inspired by Claudio’s ongoing Amory Wars comic concept is really engaging and we look forward to hearing and seeing the next vision from this band.