Earlier this year B7Klan announced their 10th Anniversary Tour with DIO – Distraught Overlord and Dirtrucks, including cities all over Europe—the tour kicked off April 9 in Paris and will continue through until April 17.
If you were one of the fortunate people to see DIO in London on April 10, you may be reading this while still suffering from a few aches and pains from all the headbanging—and regretting that you never read JROCK NEWS’ article on how to headbang safely.
Photograph by Julien Chanlome of B7klan
The venue for London’s show was held in The Underworld, situated in Camden, was well selected for the show’s performers due to its intimate size—with a low stage, no barrier, an appropriate amount of speakers for venue size, and a reasonable amount of lighting to set the stage mood. The crowd for London was modest in size, presumably the smallest crowd they’ll play to on this tour, but among the attendees a majority were more mature, long-term DIO fans awaiting for DIO to take stage—the buzz of the crowd driven by the excitement of nostalgia, and for some, perhaps reliving the time when DIO was last on European soil.
Photograph by Narine Chalabi
Even though this tour is a joint headline with the all-female band, Dirtrucks, the band came prepared with understanding that the crowd they were playing to, of the majority, were present to watch DIO perform. However, once the girls kicked off their set the crowd warmly accepted them, and responded with many heads banging and hands clapping along. Dirtrucks’ classic rock n’ roll sound may have varied from DIO’s, but the spirit of the genre doesn’t stray from the path of having fun and throwing those horns up. Dirtrucks filled their performance with energy, using the stage to show off their rock star moves with every thrashing guitar solo that came along, and ended their set with a charmed applause from the crowd.
As DIO tuned their guitars and set up their equipment behind a thin black veil covering the stage–presumably to give some sense of mystery–the crowd is filling in their waiting time with cheers and growls of member’s names. Once the lights were down low and a hue of red overtook the stage each member of DIO entered the stage in turn backed by music which increased anticipation.
DIO launched it off with one of their primary songs Lord’s Prayer, instantly sending the crowd into synchronized frantic head banging with the opening thrashing guitar riff–this frantic and synchronized head banging continued through out the performance with no thought to consequential muscle pain that will prevail the following day. Songs that followed: Puppet Show, Garasu no Umi (硝子の海), and God Forsaken switched from continuous heavy bass and thrashing guitars to a slow melodic sound of Last Dance. At this point vocalist, Mikaru, had already shown how his vocals have matured and given DIO’s songs a more perfected and a more mature sound.
Photograph by Julien Chanlome of B7klan
Getting halfway through their set, Mikaru curiously asked of whom in the crowd had seen them before, the majority of the crowd replied with sounds of agreement—who had presumably seen them preform back in 2008 on their European tour. Mikaru then introduced each member along with a short instrumental introduction from each member. Favoritism isn’t something to support, but it was clear to see that most fans were happy to see guitarist, Kei.
DIO started up again, performing their recently released single Byakuya ni Moyuru Hana. It received an equally strong response from the crowd as their primary songs did, which followed through to their next song, Haunting. At this stage of the performance, it was easy to notice how Mikaru had made sure to acknowledge and connect with as many of the fans in the crowd as possible. It was a performance in itself to watch as he desperately climbed over speakers and stretched over railings to high-five fans, reaching out into the crowd to grasp onto eager hands. He sat on the edge of the stage staring deeply into thrilled-eyed fans as they continued to sing and headband along with the music.
Fist pumping and headbanging intensified in the songs Final Call and Instrument of Hell, with Dokusai (独裁) being a favorite as fans were tested on their headbanging endurance with the chorus being repeated multiple times–while Mikaru counted down how many chorus repeats were left.
Photograph by Narine Chalabi
After that length of activity even the fans needed the encore that came next. Despite that, the encore was five minutes filled with loud and strong chants of “en-co-re” and subsequent deep growls with alternating claps and stomps of feet. There was an impressive amount of rhythm and upkeep for a crowd of such size, and even after an hour-long endurance test. Gracing the stage again, DIO performed their last songs of the night starting with a sing-a-long to Carry Dawn which the crowd impressively sang more than just the English title without vocal assistance from Mikaru. They closed their performance with Coma Gold–which was their last single before disbandment. The members left the stage after showing their gratitude in bowing and shaking the hands of fans, and the show was finished.
As a bonus to finish the night, DIO had arranged a signing session at the merchandise booth for the fans after the show. With all fans getting their chance to have their merchandise signed, and gratitude exchanged between members and fans.
Photograph by Narine Chalabi
Photograph by Julien Chanlome of B7klan
SETLIST:
- Lord’s Prayer
- Puppet Show
- Garasu no Umi
- God Forsaken
- Last Dance – Member Introduction –
- Byakuya ni Moyuru Hana
- Haunting
- Final Call
- Instrument of Hell – Encore –
- Carry Dawn
- Coma Gold
If you are attending any of the upcoming dates on this tour, remember to pick up a copy of DIO’s new live-limited single, Byakuya ni Moyuru, as it’ll be your only chance to get your hands on it. Check out the remaining dates for this tour below:
Did you attend or plan to attend any of the 10th Anniversary tour dates? Leave a comment below and tell us what the highlight was for you!
More info:
Facebook (Mikaru)
Facebook (Denka)
Twitter (Mikaru)
Twitter (Erina)
Twitter (Kei)
Twitter (Ivy)
Twitter (Denka)
Blog (Mikaru)
Blog (Erina)
Blog (Kei)
Blog (Ivy)