FATES WARNING
Project Arcadia
22.03.2012, *MIXTAPE 5* club, Sofia

words by Stefan Jordanov-Stiff, photo: Elena Nenkova

Hand on heart, my love for progressive metal faded away soon after the beginning of the 90’s, I must admit, probably because I didn’t feel the same inner need to assure the outer world that my favorite music was very intelligent indeed, despite what everybody else thought, but also because the genre wore out a little bit and became something of a instrumental wankery, which I absolutely hate to this very day.

As a matter of fact, the people around me who listened to stuff like Fates Warning, Realm, Hittman, Lethal, Psychotic Waltz and quite naturally Queensryche, were very, very few. Like a minority placed versus the majority of thrash metal fans.

I’m saying this because after the gig last night, I still feel this sense of unreality. 

FATES WARNING were amazing. Not only they brought their own atmosphere but they also let us breathe it, taste the dynamics of a musical journey, feel the art for the art’s sake. And we were a minority again. It’s quite symbolic in a way, but I don’t really want to go to deep in this matter.

Let’s start with the beginning.

If you don’t know Project Arcadia like I didn’t know them, you will never guess that this band is only a local support and is not part on any Fates Warning touring scheme. I mean, c’mon, how many Bulgarian bands have this kind of balls and this kind of professional attitude?

In my opinion they shouldn’t have reminded the audience of the headliners so often, because, you know, you’re doing your own thing up there, plus the AC/DC song was not relevant, but the most important thing is that those guys really looked like they knew exactly what they wanted to do on that stage. They were ticking through songs like a perfect clockwork mechanism.

When FATES WARNING went on stage they were applauded by the audience as it was some kind of opera or something.. No screams, no stupid comments, no slay-e-e-e-e-e-r-r-r-r-g-g-g-h-h-h-hing and definitely no typical rock’n’roll bullshit .

They start 'One' and then go back 1991 to pull 'Life In Still Water' out of there.



Jim Matheos is strictly in the right side of the stage. He looks solemn, like a man who knows the price of his art. Frank is in the opposite end. There were quite a few magical guitar things that flickered between them from time to time.

And while on the magic subject, even the most orthodox FATES WARNING purists /don’t know if there are any/ who still mourn the lack of Mark Zonder and Jow DeBiase have to admit that Joey and Bobby were breaking and fixing rhythms in real time, like no rhythm section in this world.

The phenomenon is that FATES actually have songs after all. Real songs with real and abstract lyrics and real big choruses when you need them.

So the audience sang along 'Another Perfect Day', 'Through Defferent Eyes',  'Eye To Eye' and the eternal оh-оh-оh-оh part of 'The Eleventh Hour'.

Ray sang the songs the way you expect him to sound when you start your CD player, no shit.
 



Some nerds will probably argue that he often cuts the high pitch screams but in the end it all sounds quite good.

Very few words were spoken on stage last night. Of course there was the the strong promise of a new album coming out soon and words of gratitude to the fans, but the general communication was held mainly and presumably on a musical level, which makes this report even a harder task to accomplish.

It’s hard to describe a live show of the coldest /in the good sense of this word/ prog metal band on the Earth. The most different one too.

The only thing I know is the same sense of unreality and it seems it won’t go away very soon. I gues this goes for the rest of the minority too.

GALLERY