A trip to London and a ‘brief’ Lord of the Lost concert.
If you just want to read the Lord of the Lost performance review please Click here. To listen to the Blogcast, Click here.
SO on Friday the 14th of February – in a completely non valentines day related trip, I made the journey down to London to see Lord of the Lost perform as part of the Renagades tour where they (along with Nailed to Obscurity) were supporting Equilibrium at the O2 academy in Islington.
As I was getting the train and they have been notoriously unreliable of late from my part of the world, I planned to get to London with several hours to spare. Quite unlike me, I hadn’t planned what to do in my spare time and a quick search on the internet on the journey down left me annoyed that my go to adventures of checking out various crime/pathology museums were all shut as was the barbican conservatory (Yes I really am just as interested in dead things as I am in plants!)
However this lead me to finding an interesting little free museum in the midst of all the University of London buildings called the ‘Grant Museum of Zoology’. What an absolutely fantastic place to wander around!
Both creepy and fascinating and also quite sad as they are very proactive at pointing out several species they have in their collection that are now extinct, mostly due to over hunting.
My only criticism of this place, is that they have hundreds of specimens that aren’t really visible either due to bad lighting, over crowding in the displays or simply too high up!
I’m rather terrible at taking photos when I go to places like this, as I generally tend to get very immersed in what I’m doing however here are a few snaps I did take:
If you don’t like creepy things scroll past the next few photos!!
After all that was just general refuelling and getting dinner at a cheap little restaurant close to the venue. And apologies to anyone who saw me asleep for 20 minutes in the middle of ‘The Angel’ in Islington!!!
After my little snooze, I got rid of my large bag at a Stasher facility nearby, ( I’ve used them in different places a couple of times and would definitely recommend it!).
Stasher.com
From there I then headed to the venue for a prebooked meet and greet with Lord of the Lost.
Now I must point out I am not a ‘fan girl’ by any stretch and have never done a ‘meet and greet’ before. I actually go to very few gigs and in general don’t tend to focus on any one band/performer – and never really have done – Except for a very shortlived Take That phase that I went through for about 6 months – but even then, I wasn’t one to collect memorabilia or put posters up on my bedroom wall.
And I think this is because
1 – I have a ridiculously eclectic music taste that changes hour to hour let alone day to day,
and 2 – because I often find you can become too ‘in to’ a particular band, somewhat warping the objectivity of what they’re producing. You want to love their newest album because you love the band/band members and because of that you don’t separate the music – for what it is, from who’s performing it.
That being said, having only discovered Lord of the Lost early 2019, I have been really impressed with their style and generally love the majority of their songs and their uniqueness, although I did find myself having to brush up on some of their older material before the gig!
So the meet and greet was very casual, inside the main part of venue itself.
I was actually the last one to get in and once I’d been spotted as being new was greeted with hugs from the 3 members who were already out and chatting, which was lovely.
There are 2 things that are worth noting;
1 – This was one of the final dates of the 5ish week tour they had been on (with only 4 or 5 days off).
2- It had been a very long journey over from performing in Eindhoven the night before.
However Gared, Niklas, Pi and eventually Klaas were so friendly and chatty to us all throughout.
There wasn’t any sense of us being a burden on them at all and there was a great sense of energy as they answered all sorts of questions. At the end we took a group photo and then a couple of people started asking for individual selfies.
Now I absolutely HATE asking for selfies/photos – which I think comes from working on a film set where it is in very bad form to do.
Generally as an extra or even when you have small bits of dialogue, you just don’t do it. However I realised this wasn’t the same situation and I needed to get over the awkwardness of it and I managed to jump in and get a couple (sadly I didn’t catch Klaas but we did have a little chat about makeup before he left!)
Gared 
Pi 
Niklas
And it was lovely as I wasn’t made to feel daft at all – as Gared said to me “we are all the same, we all put our trousers on one leg at a time!”.
After that they said their goodbyes and we were actually allowed to stay in the venue so I secured myself a spot at the front and waited whilst everyone else arrived. I actually got chatting to a wonderful girl about all things music related, and it just goes to show how friendly the metal/rock scene can generally be, all brought together by a love of music, all knowing that, at times we’re a little on the outside edge of the rest of society.
The first band on was Nailed to Obscurity, who I actually didn’t know where coming to London with the rest of the tour and felt rather annoyed I hadn’t listened to any of their music beforehand.
Whilst it was a little heavier than I tend to listen to in general I was actually really surprised how much I enjoyed them. The lead singer was very aware that the crowd was not there for them, something that must be so hard to overcome in terms of stage energy – but overcome he did!
And he with the rest of the band put in a great performance. I have to say musically they are actually a lot better than they may seem on the surface. Although the speed got a little over the top at times and you kind of lost the rhythm, in general the drum rhythms throughout some of the songs were an incredible driving force, and intertwined with some very subtle, but intricate guitar, made for an exciting listen.
Their finale, with the two guitarist on stage was a superb ending to the set. It slowed everything down and although the rest of the crowd maybe hadn’t been behind them all the way – they certainly were now and there was a beautiful sense of awe as everyone watched them play.
SO then it was time for Lord of the Lost who with the first chords of their opening number, Lament for the condemned, were met with roars and cheers from the crowd.
Everyone looked amazing as usual, and Chris came out in an absolutely spectacular jacket which I had seen on Instagram but it looked even more incredible amongst the purple lights and swirls from the smoke machine.
Although a fairly slow song to start a set, it has such a foreboding presence about it – brought out through the outstanding drum work. This turned out to be a cut down version of the song which led into Morgana – another stunning song (I may be biased as it’s the one I covered recently!) Beautifully delivered by Chris, who although seemed to miss some of the screams out, didn’t lack any soul when performing this number.
And then came one of my absolute favourites – Drag me to Hell. Again I noticed Chris was actually missing some of the harsher vocals in this song, but put it down to merely protecting his voice for the rest of the set. In general though my eyes were on Pi for this as his energy was so present during this song!
The vocal wonder, Chris “The Lord” Harms 
The ever energetic, guitar maestro, Pi
And then suddenly it all went wrong!
The first chord of the next song started and Chris put his hands up, everything stopped and he spoke on the mic.
It turned out he had been suffering with a fever and general malaise for a couple of days and felt like if he continued he wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone sing. Suddenly the reason for the missing harsh vocals in those couple of songs, became clear.
I was, and still am, incredibly disappointed at what happened. But…well there aren’t enough words to describe just how incredible Chris’ performance had been for those 3 songs. He seemed to give every last ounce of what he had to perform and by the end of Drag me to Hell simple had nothing left to give. Many people would have just not performed at all, and my already high admiration for him as a performer has increased no end. He was captivating on stage and wonderful to watch and learn from. And of course not ignoring the rest of the band either – they were so full of energy, fire in their bellies and on top form.
From what I saw – this is why they are so good. Although during a performance most eyes tend to be on your lead singer, in my opinion the rest of the band has to perform – in the same way your chorus members in a musical, or extras in a movie have to perform to add to the whole scene.And every single one of them did just that.
Lord of the Lost is not a front man with backing.
They are a band.
A full unit all working together, with the same energy and feeling and it brings something very special to the stage.
They will of course start to take off, as well they should, once they have toured with Iron Maiden, but I am hoping to catch them again in Europe at one of their smaller performances. Whilst their music is enough to fill the air at any large gig, and I know they will have no trouble commanding a large arena with Maiden (and indeed already have at various festivals,) I feel that there is something quite special watching them in a smaller setting and being able to see the intention in their eyes.
I like musicians, but I love performers and Lord of the Lost are definitely the latter.
And I guess after all of this maybe I’ve become a fan girl after all…
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Stefani Keogh 