Concert Reviews

Morbid Angel - Kataklysm - Necronomicon
July 2nd 1998
Le Medley, Montreal, PQ, Canada

This review was going to be a review of Incantation, Vader, and Morbid Angel, but things didn't quite work out that way. First, Vader and Incantation didn't show up. Then, Morbid Angel was going to be late, which meant the concert started three and a half hours late. The concert finally got underway at 10:30 with Necronomicon, who weren't even supposed to play that night, but they did a decent job. Up next was Kataklysm, who were much better. Close to 1am, Morbid Angel took the stage, and proceeded to dominate the room for well over two hours.

There were glimpses of Trey and other band members, as a long sound check seemed to drag on forever. Finally, in the last minutes, the main man Pete "Commando" Sandoval appeared behind the drums, and the show began with the intro piece 'Disturbance In The Great Slumber'. Then the band immediately launched in to 'Umulamahri'.

They played lots of new material off of "Formulas Fatal To The Flesh", the song list went something like this... 'Bill Ur-Sag', 'Nothing Is Not', 'World Of Shit', 'Rapture', 'Lord Of All Fevers And Plague', 'Prayer Of Hatred', 'Covenant Of Death', 'Hymn To A Gas Giant', 'Invocation Of The Continual One', 'Nar Mattaru', 'Blood On My Hands', 'Heaving Earth'. Then they played an encore, although by this time it was 3am and I had to get to work the next day at 7am and I'd been up for the past 19 hours, so I was beat and left before they took the stage again. I personally found the song 'Invocation Of The Continual One' to be overly long and boring, but I guess they were giving Pete a bit of a breather.

As for the performance, Trey was in fine form. His solos were incredibly fast and accurate, tons of strange tapping riffs and whammy bar dives, and he could always be heard above the rest of the band with clarity. The whole concert had an excellent mix (it damn well better after the hour long sound check), the bass was too soft, but the guitars were clear and the whole production sounded better than the production on their albums. The drum sound was also excellent. Pete's kick drums were clearer than any bass drum I've ever heard in the past, every hit tore right through the audience. Speaking of Pete, he played like a man possessed by Satan, his inspiration was clearly not divine. He didn't miss a single beat, his control of the drums and of very complex fills and rhythms was complete and impressive.

A great show, but it probably would have been better had they started a whole lot earlier.

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