Life Of Agony Still Alive And Kicking

Life Of Agony playing their succesful debut album 'River Runs Red' completely...that promises a nostalgic night with some heavy rock! So together with two of my old and dearest friends we headed to the Effenaar to see if we could bring back some memories

Life of Agony in Effenaar Eindhoven, April 2 2010 (Ronald Says 8 out of 10)
We got there early so we had to make it through the support act 'Panic Cell'. Although hard working they delivered a uninspiring half hour of nu-metal. All cliches were there: repeating blast beats, a grunt here and there, and the standard guitar riffs. The Seal cover 'Crazy' was the worst and fortunately their last song.

The main act entered the stage with singer Keith Caputo in an interesting outfit to say the least: a pink crochet thingy. But this was no fashion show and they kicked off the first song of the album. What followed was a great performance of all the songs with accompanying sound bytes in place. The slight slower tempo made them even more dramatic. With the theme of the album in mind (suicide of a young guy) it added to the whole dark vibe of the album. The contrast with the tempo changes was more obvious and suited the songs very well. The band was tight and Caputo showed he still is a skilled rock singer. His voice can be low, warm and melodramatic but he can also scream like the best. It did ask a lot of him because at the end of the gig he seemed pretty exhausted. Too bad they had some technical difficulties during the set. It resulted in some long breaks and sometimes breaking the nice flow of the set. At the end of the set they did a few more songs of their other albums to end in style.



It wasn't a trip to memory lane as I expected but more of renewed admiration for this band. Hopefully they will keep on playing like this in the years to come and eventually come up with new material as well.