Photography; Ton Dekkers
29-12-2014 013, Tilburg, The Netherlands

In honor of the 20th anniversary of the legendary album Tales of the Thousand Lakes Amorphis has decided to do a special tour this year.
The appetizer of tonight is the Swedish doom formation Avatarium. Musically it’s closest to bands like Candlemass, only they have a female vocalist with a beautiful blues voice. I like them on CD and live the sound was great too. The stage performance however was so wrong that it was distracting. A weird dancing lady in a strange costume with feathers, doesn’t go well with slow sad doom music. The crowd had enough of them pretty quick which resulted in someone yelling “Boring!” from the far back. Fortunately we didn’t come for Avatarium and we knew the evening would have a lot more to bring for us.

Amorphis
A band I’ve seen a number of times now and never, really never, disappointing. A special set for the legendery Tales of the Thousand Lakes album, the album that gave a real name to them and on which you can find several songs they still play (on almost every set). There’s a reason the band re-released most of the songs in 2010 titles Magic and Mayhem.
Tonight the show is completely dedicated to this mighty record in the Amorphis history.
A beautiful decor of a blue ocean and an eagle carrying a big Mjöllnir is what we see when the intro starts and it all begins. Thousand Lakes, the original intro of the album it’s all about tonight, proving that Amorphis knew how to make intro’s for years and they’re still doing it! For those who know the album well, you know what comes next. For the rest of your, I won’t keep you in the dark. Amorphis plays the entire album integral so the first song is Into Hiding, a song that they usually still play and also the first Amorphis song I heard. I have to admit I heard the Magic and Mayhem version, since I’m a little to young for the original (which was released the year I was born, 1994). The mix is perfect from the very first tone and Tomi Joutsens vocals are just perfect again. The crowd reacts immediately on the band everyone came for. Then The Castaway, another of those classic songs every Amorphis fan will know. Great to finally hear this one live. After that it doesn’t take long before what might be the most holy of the Amorphis legacy is played for us, a song Tommy J also said it probably has a special meaning for a lot us us. For me personally it’s the best song they’ve ever written. Ofcourse I’m talking about Black Winter Day.
This is how the lucky feel
How the blessed man think
Like a daybreak in spring
Like the flat brink of a cloud
Like a dark night in autumn
A black winter day

Everyone, ’till the very last man, knew the lyrics. That was amazing!
The rest of the album was played and only the real fans would know most of these songs. For others the next song they knew was also the last song, know as Magic and Mayhem, again such a legendary song!
But these Fins don’t just leave it there, they come back for an encore with The Gathering, Sign from the North Side and the awesome violence of Vulgar Necrolatry, what an amazing benefit for the headbang fanatics in the crowd.

As Amorphis than leaves the stage, Tilburg still can’t get enough and thus they have to come on stage one more time. This time they bring Better Unborn, Against Widows and a final of their legendary songs for tonight, My Kantele. Oh how I’ve enjoyed that! Than there was only Folk of the North left to conclude this evening.
An evening I wouldn’t forget! Awesome! These guys can really do something special!