Dark Tranquillity
Metal Hammer Paradise - 2024
Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen
Together with Pyogenesis and Moonspell, Dark Tranquillity completed our top three band selections for Metal Hammer Paradise 2024. While Pyogenesis had blown us away, Moonspell had performed well but not lived up to their full potential. Dark Tranquillity is a band that had never disappointed on a live stage, so it was interesting to see how they would fare at this northern German festival.
“I remember being here many years ago with my family, celebrating a 16th birthday or something. It’s much better now with all the metalheads around. Nothing against my family, you know.”
- Mikael Stanne (vocals)
This was our first visit, but if you had visited Weissenhäuser Strand outside of the Metal Hammer Paradise festival, when it is a well renowned holiday and vacation resort, I’m sure the difference would be quite striking. As it was, the place was filled with metalheads, and many of them were present in the Maximum Metal Stage tent for this show. Oddly, Dark Tranquillity had been set up to somewhat overlap with fellow Gothenburgers Evergrey, who were playing the Baltic Ballroom at the same time. We had managed to catch a bit of their show as a nice warm-up, but there was just no way we were about to miss out on Dark Tranquillity, and so a full show with Evergrey would have to wait for another day.
After a nicely ominous intro, Dark Tranquillity took the stage - no muss, no fuss - and went straight into The Last Imagination off of their still fresh Endtime Signals album, out for a few months now.
The band had a nice setup - no backdrop, but three vertical LED screens in the back showing different video productions fitting to each song and which album it was from.
Now, if only the band had been equally animated. That may sound harsh, but it certainly felt like something was lacking in this Dark Tranquillity delivery, some indescribable chemistry which has always been there in the past.
Mikael Stanne walked around quite a bit, and spoke a little bit between songs, but I didn’t feel the usual presence and connection that’s basically become synonymous with the band by now.
On a plus side, Johan Reinholdz was quite active and gave a good performance, and debuting live guitarist Peter Lyse Hansen (HateSphere) was basically smiling widely from the second he stepped onto the stage until he left, but this wasn’t enough to lift the show, and it was hard to detect any great interest in being here from the rest of the band.
Oh, they played well enough, there was nothing amiss with the music, but the nerve and feeling of a live gig was sadly not present.
“Can you handle a few more? Cause I think we have it in us.”
- Stanne (vocals)
Going by what I was getting from the band, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the crowd around me wasn’t the wildest bunch I’ve ever encountered. To be fair, the average age at this festival seemed to be quite a bit higher than that of others we visit, and the band was getting a good deal of cheers along the way between songs, but yeah. It was a rather calm affair, and that’s again not something I’m used to at Dark Tranquillity’s shows. The long time staples at the end was definitely the best received part of the concert, and when Stanne said they had one more song to play, someone immediately called out for Misery’s Crown, to which Stanne was equally quick to reply that someone had apparently read the setlist. Not that it’s a well-kept secret that this particular song is played, and that it has the place of honour to end the show, as it has for several years now, but it’s nice to hear nonetheless.
Yeah, as you can gather, Dark Tranquillity didn’t exactly blow anyone away this day. It wasn’t a bad show, but more than anything, it felt indifferent, lacking in energy and connection. This might very well be the first time I’ve been disappointed by one of their gigs, and the fact that we were seeing them again the day after in Copenhagen suddenly felt far less exciting.
Setlist (incomplete):
The Last Imagination
Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive)
Hours Passed In Exile
Atoma
Shivers And Voids
Cathode Ray Sunshine
Phantom Days
ThereIn
The Wonders At Your Feet
Lost To Apathy
Misery’s Crown
“I remember being here many years ago with my family, celebrating a 16th birthday or something. It’s much better now with all the metalheads around. Nothing against my family, you know.”
- Mikael Stanne (vocals)
This was our first visit, but if you had visited Weissenhäuser Strand outside of the Metal Hammer Paradise festival, when it is a well renowned holiday and vacation resort, I’m sure the difference would be quite striking. As it was, the place was filled with metalheads, and many of them were present in the Maximum Metal Stage tent for this show. Oddly, Dark Tranquillity had been set up to somewhat overlap with fellow Gothenburgers Evergrey, who were playing the Baltic Ballroom at the same time. We had managed to catch a bit of their show as a nice warm-up, but there was just no way we were about to miss out on Dark Tranquillity, and so a full show with Evergrey would have to wait for another day.
After a nicely ominous intro, Dark Tranquillity took the stage - no muss, no fuss - and went straight into The Last Imagination off of their still fresh Endtime Signals album, out for a few months now.
The band had a nice setup - no backdrop, but three vertical LED screens in the back showing different video productions fitting to each song and which album it was from.
Now, if only the band had been equally animated. That may sound harsh, but it certainly felt like something was lacking in this Dark Tranquillity delivery, some indescribable chemistry which has always been there in the past.
Mikael Stanne walked around quite a bit, and spoke a little bit between songs, but I didn’t feel the usual presence and connection that’s basically become synonymous with the band by now.
On a plus side, Johan Reinholdz was quite active and gave a good performance, and debuting live guitarist Peter Lyse Hansen (HateSphere) was basically smiling widely from the second he stepped onto the stage until he left, but this wasn’t enough to lift the show, and it was hard to detect any great interest in being here from the rest of the band.
Oh, they played well enough, there was nothing amiss with the music, but the nerve and feeling of a live gig was sadly not present.
“Can you handle a few more? Cause I think we have it in us.”
- Stanne (vocals)
Going by what I was getting from the band, it wasn’t that much of a surprise that the crowd around me wasn’t the wildest bunch I’ve ever encountered. To be fair, the average age at this festival seemed to be quite a bit higher than that of others we visit, and the band was getting a good deal of cheers along the way between songs, but yeah. It was a rather calm affair, and that’s again not something I’m used to at Dark Tranquillity’s shows. The long time staples at the end was definitely the best received part of the concert, and when Stanne said they had one more song to play, someone immediately called out for Misery’s Crown, to which Stanne was equally quick to reply that someone had apparently read the setlist. Not that it’s a well-kept secret that this particular song is played, and that it has the place of honour to end the show, as it has for several years now, but it’s nice to hear nonetheless.
Yeah, as you can gather, Dark Tranquillity didn’t exactly blow anyone away this day. It wasn’t a bad show, but more than anything, it felt indifferent, lacking in energy and connection. This might very well be the first time I’ve been disappointed by one of their gigs, and the fact that we were seeing them again the day after in Copenhagen suddenly felt far less exciting.
Setlist (incomplete):
The Last Imagination
Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive)
Hours Passed In Exile
Atoma
Shivers And Voids
Cathode Ray Sunshine
Phantom Days
ThereIn
The Wonders At Your Feet
Lost To Apathy
Misery’s Crown