# Alestorm in Melbourne (HMAS Vendetta, Voyager)



## Tomo009 (May 15, 2011)

So I saw Alestorm at the Corner Hotel last night, was a great show for sure.

First I will describe the venue because I had never been there before. Well basically it's by far the best venue I've been to in Melbourne, it's tiny and has some annoying pillars on the floor, but the acoustics are absolutely brilliant and the speakers perfect. 

Maybe that doesn't sound like much to people from other areas, but it is REALLY hard to find a nice sounding venue in Melbourne, you can either hear traffic or the speakers sound like fuzz and hurt your ears up close. This is the first venue I've been too with both aspects so great.

Well first up was HMAS Vendetta and I won't talk too long about them because my opinions might be a bit off. The weren't bad as much as they just seemed to be at the wrong gig. Their lyrics were very literal and "patriotic" and well, they weren't at all heavy. They were reasonably tight and their mix wasn't too bad (the bass sounded great) but the vocals were way too loud and the keys and violin had a REALLY annoying high end sound.

Voyager came on next and blew me away basically. I hadn't really given them any thought before this show but damn did they impress. The first thing they did was use the crowd to get their sound right, something I have not really seen anyone do so effectively before. Once their set actually started the whole crowd really started to get into it. The awesome thing was to me as well, they gave me a somewhat similar vibe to Nevermore (they don't sound the same, just had a similar impact on me) who I was supposed to see next month but I'm guessing you know how that turned out.....

Their set list was just great, they seemed to have everything in the rights spot and they were tight, extremely tight, Kreator tight. Their sound was also huge live, they had a lot of dynamics to their songs and they seemed to know when to really bring in the heavy stuff (they even had a breakdown, probably the first one that really seemed appropriate to me in a fair while). They even played a crazy medley that I wish I could find on youtube. Well I should probably stop rambling or I might even struggle to write more about Alestorm's set . Suffice to say i highly recommend you give them a listen.



Well the first great thing about Alestorm's set was they didn't keep us waiting, it was probably only 20 minutes after Voyager's set the curtains opened. The actual set list was the same as the rest of the tour (easy to look up). Once again the sound was great, everything was perfectly audible and wasn't painful to the ears.

The show was long, 5 hours in fact overall and Alestorm had a fair share of that (obviously). The pit was getting pretty intense, I tried to stay up front as much as I could but in reality I was all over the place. People were flying everywhere and there was no stage barrier, many people got up stage including my friend, twice. The band were really great about it and played along with them.

As usual with Melbourne gigs, it got pretty aggressive, there was someone repeatedly punching people in the back, I fell over over 5 times (don't remember exact numbers), had my leg crushed and contorted in strange ways and one point was winded. But water was easily available so I was back in the pit after about 10 minutes.

Not really sure what would be the single highlight of the evening, going in I was expecting "Wenches and Mead" to steal the show but actually the whole set was pretty amazing. Afterwards it's hard to say, maybe "Leviathan" or "Keelhauled", another band I really recommend seeing live, they were a lot of fun and connected well with the audience.


Another thing about last night, my opinion on Keytars has been reversed, when they aren't annoying they are actually quite awesome, Voyager's vocalist Danny came in to do a keytar solo near the end of Alestorm's set and it tied in really well. All in all a great show.


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## noob_pwn (May 15, 2011)

i was at the sydney show, a good mate of mine plays in voyager and i was lucky enough to get in free and drink his rider for him.

Voyager were awesome, the medley they did was unreal.
Really cant say the same for Alestorm though, they were so drunk and hilarious but idk i just don't "get" what is so great about them.

They did play very tight and have great sound though


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## Bloody_Inferno (May 15, 2011)

First time at the Corner? Yeah, agreed. It's a well known venue for a reason. 

I'm good mates with the bassist from HMAS Vendetta. They're one of the more... unique bands out there , and understandably, they're quite difficult to mix right, having not guitar and all. Still they're quite an entertaining band to watch. Good on them for the Alestorm support gig. 

EDIT: Dammit I got that Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi song in my head now.


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## Tomo009 (May 15, 2011)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> First time at the Corner? Yeah, agreed. It's a well known venue for a reason.
> 
> I'm good mates with the bassist from HMAS Vendetta. They're one of the more... unique bands out there , and understandably, they're quite difficult to mix right, having not guitar and all. Still they're quite an entertaining band to watch. Good on them for the Alestorm support gig.
> 
> EDIT: Dammit I got that Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi song in my head now.



You seem to be friends with all the local bands XD. There's no doubt they could all play. The bassist walked in what must have been 5-10 minutes before their set though haha (and ended up with the best sound). I see they call themselves "Australiana power metal", that's probably pretty accurate, power metal never really fit with me. They did seem to have or make a lot of fans in the audience, just I can't say I was one of them.


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## Bloody_Inferno (May 17, 2011)

I didn't know this happened.


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## Tomo009 (May 18, 2011)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> I didn't know this happened.



Many things happened haha, I'm 80% sure Alestorm were drunk the whole time but it was great. Much alcohol was consumed on stage that's for sure.


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## Bloody_Inferno (Jun 1, 2011)

Looks like it was filmed too.


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