In December of 2008, Coheed and Cambria performed a rare 4-night show covering their 4 albums at that point, an album a night. This show was played in Chicago, New York and London and was called Neverender.
I totally missed this though as a few weeks after booking a 3 week holiday in Manila, the Neverender gig was announced. In a way, I was gutted even though I already saw them a few months before in September of 2007 at the old Carling Islington Academy. This 4-night show would always be special, and I missed it.
Forward to 2010. Coheed and Cambria released a new album and along with it, a tour for their new album. Another minor dilemma with tickets came up after I got tickets to see Coheed and Cambria. Another favourite band of mine which I somehow royally missed last year was playing on the same evening at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The band was Tegan & Sara. Since I already had tickets for Coheed and Cambria, I stuck with them and I am sure glad I did as their show at HMV Forum was pretty much epic as the songs and guitar riffs Coheed and Cambria is known for.
Support for the evening was These Monsters! who called themselves a heavy metal band onstage which was really surprising since they had a saxophone player on stage. I’m not a big fan of heavy metal and certainly not a purist, but found the addition of a saxophone amusing. Sadly, it was too weak during the entirety of their set and hardly added really significant. Nothing really special with them but a good enough support band.
After the support band, they cleared out the stage, made us wait anxiously until Coheed and Cambria. You should know the drill by now.
Since this was a new album tour for Year Of The Black Rainbow, most of the songs Coheed and Cambria played were from this album. They kicked of the evening with 3 new songs; One, The Broken, and Here We Are Juggernaut which easily set up the tempo for the evening.
Here’s a complete setlist for the evening:
- One
- The Broken
- Here We Are Juggernaut
- No World For Tomorrow
- Time Consumer
- Everything Evil
- The Camper Velorium III: Al the Killer
- The Suffering
- World of Lines
- Made Out of Nothing (All That I Am)
- Three Evils (Embodied In Love And Shadow)
- Pearl of the Stars
- Guns of Summer
- A Favor House Atlantic
- In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
- Far (encore)
- 21:13 (encore)
- Welcome Home (encore)
The new songs sounded pretty tight and amazing live and were as powerful as the old ones. Of course, the old ones made the crowd go mad and it was an absolute joy screaming “Pull the trigger and the nightmares stop” during Three Evils.
Pearl of the Stars will always be remembered as an amazing song when a couple less than a foot away from my face started making out. It burns you know.
Still, the best part of the evening was when they performed In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 which was the last song they played before the encore but played the song like it was the encore. Screaming along to “Man your own jackhammer. Man your battlestations” with all emotion and energy compares to only a few other things in life.
No Ten Speed (Of God’s Blood And Burial) nor Devil In Jersey City on their setlist but closing out the evening with Welcome Home was quite perfect already.
It was a great evening especially after not seeing them in 3 years and missing their most significant shows in December 2008 (I do have it on DVD). Not once did I think about how the Tegan & Sara gig across town went. I will catch those sisters in the future.
