HAMMERFALL, VIRGIN STEELE AND FREEDOM CALL Live in Florence, 30/1/2001
It's quite a scandal that a veteran band like Virgin Steele has to support a boy-band like Hammerfall! Sadly, unlike many people want to ignore, metal music works now just like major music...
Freedom Call open up the gig: ther music is totally derivative and built to please a large basis of european fans (we know it's a Dan Zimmerman, Gamma Ray drummer, project band to raise some money up), their playing is good and they also seem to be nice blokes. After a while people start singing their Oktoberfest like melodies and the fivesome at the end of the gig can be considered a nice warm up.
When Freedom Call leave the stage, the small Tenax club gets more and more crowdy, as the true headliners of the tour are ready to get on stage! An ovation welcomes Virgin Steele on stage, shattering the silence with "Invictus" and subsequently "The Wine Of Violence". The execution is perfect, David DeFeis is a magnetic stage animal and Edward Pursino is a natural born rocker with a permanent funny smile on his Gerard Depardieu-like face! On the bass guitar we have a very young guy from New York, Josh Block, who will probably (and hopefully) join permanently the band, while on the drums there's Frank Zummo (he also played the last track on "Marriage 2") since Frank Gilchriest couldn't play thru the whole tour because of his work. The show goes on with "Return Of The King" and the incredible acoustic medley of "Veni, Vidi, Vici", "Emalaith" and "The Burning Of Rome" flowing in it's electric original version: ten minutes of magic and emotions sending shivers down your spine! It's time for aggression and high speed energy again then, so the band blasts the audience with "Great Sword Of Flame" before the grand finale represented by the ten minute opus "Veni, Vidi, Vici". The crowd gets mad, everybody stands in awe and Virgin Steele are clearly this night's triumphators, although they played for just fifty minutes.
As for Hammerfall... I've never seen such a weak and ridicolous band, how can they call themselves professionals? Mediocre musicians (except for well known drummer Anders Johansson), a dumb and pathetic stage act (bald guitarist playing a dumb version of KK Downing's stage persona, Oscar Dronjak clad in alloy and plastic armor, a voiceless singer), songs which just suck... How can the european crowd appreciate such a bunch of buffoons who are just a demented toy version of mighty Accept? Disgusting.
Virgin Steele blew them away: in fact during the Hammerfall gig a lot of people went to the bar or started wandering here and there! In a certain way justice is done, but time will be the ultimate judge: no one will remeber Hammerfall!
Some pictures:
Edward
Edward again
David and Josh
David and his keyboards
Me (left), David (center) and my friend Daniele (right)