Rhapsody Of Fire returns to New York City to bring the unifying sound of Power Metal to life with support from Wind Rose and Seven Kingdoms. Don’t miss this one.
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PiercingMetal’s “Best Of” 2012: The Concerts
Looking back on 2012 as a concert going year I had to say that there were a lot of cool highlights for me. Sure I was compiling my “Year End Best Of” to cover all the different things that I’ve examined over the year but with the blog growing faster and faster and more contests happening on it for the crushing shows that hit our town, I decided to keep showcasing a number of the concerts that I saw during the course of the year. Bear in mind that these are my very favorite ones out of the whole bunch. I really had a great time seeing a number of shows but these stood out. Here we go.
1. KISS @ Live On Letterman: I don’t think that I need to go into how cool it is to see a band like KISS in the Ed Sullivan Theatre. The place holds 500 or so people and KISS sells out places that hold thousands more. See why I felt this was special. So yeah.
2. Nightwish and Kamelot @ Beacon Theatre: Nightwish and Kamelot both hold very special places to me as a music scribe and having them paired up for a tour was extraordinary.
3. Trans-Siberian Orchestra @ Prudential Center: This show was the debut of the new “Lost Christmas Eve” themed tour.
4. Roger Waters @ Yankee Stadium: My second time at Yankee Stadium for a massive concert and with Roger playing “The Wall” from front to back I stood awestruck.
5. KISS & Motley Crue @ PNC Bank Arts Center: This was a kickass pairing and the guys in The Treatment were pretty damned good as well.
6. Lamb Of God @ Roseland Ballroom: Metal laid waste to NYC this night.
7. Paganfest @ Gramercy Theatre: Turisas headlined this one and brought along Alestorm, Arkona and Huntress.
8. Sabaton @ Gramercy Theatre: This band is climbing the pole of popularity. Local support
9. Rhapsody Of Fire @ Gramercy Theatre: There was so much drama with the RoF division leading up to this show but you would never notice with the levels of kick ass Power Metal that was happening on the stage.
10. Marillion @ Irving Plaza: Leaders of the Neo-Progressive Rock movement. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them and they even did “Kayleigh”.
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Win A Ticket To Rhapsody Of Fire @ The Gramercy Theatre
PiercingMetal is giving away some tickets to the Rhapsody Of Fire show that is happening over at the Gramercy Theatre this week. The giveaway comes care of our friends in the Live Nation marketing department and is being held on our Official Facebook Page. Please click the embedded image below to participate.
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Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Metal Fun = Rhapsody Of Fire x 2 (Sort Of…)
Talk about your surprising business decisions. It seems as though the creative members of the band Rhapsody Of Fire have decided to part ways. Do you know them? If not, they are a wonderfully orchestrated Symphonic Power metal band from Italy and their stuff is really epic at times and very majestic. I had heard of the band in the early 2000’s but didn’t start doing reviews of their work until about 2004 with their “Symphony Of Enchanted Lands” album. They were called Rhapsody back then and added the “Of Fire” in 2006 based on trademark issues with the previous name. Strange how that happened since they had been formed way back in 1993.
It’s important to know that while these two creative partners (and I am speaking of guitarist Luca Turilli and keyboardist Alex Starapoli) have parted ways, the band will still exist but will do so in two distinct formats. According to what I have read around the web, Alex will continue along with singer Fabio Leone and drummer Alex Holzwarth under the existing moniker Rhapsody Of Fire while Luca will take bassist Patrice Guers and drummer Alex Holzwarth for that project. The search for new members will obviously be paramount for both sides of the fence and one has to anticipate that using the same drummer for the project will eventually become a problem. The band’s output on the Nuclear Blast Records label since 2010 has been very regular which was great to see happening after the hiatus that was cause by their joining forces with Manowar bassist Joey DeMaio’s Magic Circle Music. There were many who believed that the band was hidden away on purpose by the label. Who knows, but it wouldn’t surprise me in all honesty. Nothing in the music business does anymore.
PiercingMetal Thoughts: My thoughts on it all? Well, the first one is that Luca should have gone a different name route instead of using Rhapsody. Yes he is known for it all but why risk confusion in the fans eyes. We already have two L.A. Guns, two The Sweet’s and probably a few more that I just cannot recollect at this time. You’re creative and you’re well known, so move on into something bigger for yourself. As far as the Rhapsody Of Fire side goes, well, I think they will have some issues too if the fans are only wanting the original band guitar god. Can they find another exceptional player? Of course they can. There are thousands of amazing and technical players out there who would be dying to be in the group. I do think that they will be alright in the long run as the voice often becomes the band. We have all seen this happen before and some fans drop the group entirely when the voice they know and love is no longer a part of the lineup. The timing of this is actually on the strange side as the band Kamelot is currently touring with Rhapsody Of Fire singer Fabio Leone and he is doing a stand up job at their material if any of the YouTube clips are to be believed. One has to wonder if ROF should have just broken up entirely and called it a band career well done. That would have let the members all do their own thing at this point instead of offering up a sure to be confusing pair of groups. Let’s divide the fans down the middle and start the debate on which one will be better off in the long run.
Opinions? Let’s hear them.
Official Website: http://www.rhapsodyoffire.com/
Official Website: http://ltrhapsody.com/
“Nuclear Blast Records Sampler” by Various Artists
Artist: Various Artists
Title: “Nuclear Blast Records Sampler”
Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release Date: 3/4/2011
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 4/5
I just love when a good idea keeps repeating the process and delivering the goods again and again and this is my immediate view of samplers like this when they bear the Nuclear Blast Records label imprint. Since starting my website back in 2005 I have seen a lot of changes in how music is being delivered and many of the record companies are having a tough time which makes items like this a smart business move. Thanks to the means of digital delivery of sampler issues that focus on the latest and greatest from their artist roster, they are putting those bands into our music players and mobile phone devices and giving us an immediate means to purchase a full on album of work. The latest sampler from Nuclear Blast starts off strong with a dose of Meshuggah and throttles us a little more with the Lords of Symphonic Black Metal Dimmu Borgir and this is only the beginning of the aural adventure. There was a lot that I didn’t have much background on in terms of the bands being offered this time around and I admit that while Hell was new to my Metal ears that I really loved its traditional and almost Old School Merciful Fate kind of vibe while the newest from Before The Dawn was a welcome sound as I have not heard them in many years. The new listener is fortunate and can safely climb aboard with this latest offering from the band and pick up on them with little incident. I felt that Sylosis were interesting and a band I want to hear more from as this seemed to be a cross between Technical display and Metalcore at first listen. I like that stuff when it is done properly.
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