After seeing Kamelot twice last year at festivals, they have really begun to climb in my interest, but a serious change has happened since then; lead singer Roy Khan upped and left the band, and since no new permanent solution had come along, Kamelot was now touring with a session vocalist. Well, two actually, Fabio Lione of Rhapsody Of Fire and Tommy Karevik of Seventh Wonder, but Lione did almost all the leads where Karevik was more backing, of course along with long-time Kamelot touring session vocalist Elize Ryd of Amaranthe (who were, along with Evergrey, supporting Kamelot on this tour).

As this was the second tour for the Poetry For The Poisoned, the band was free to put mostly anything they felt like on the setlist, but I still found it surprising that out of 15 songs (excl. 4 solos) only two songs were chosen from said album. Surely, by now people would have had ample time to get used to it and found a wish to sing along to its anthems?
Anyway, the band came on, and the set began with one of their many recent hits, Rule The World, and the crowd went wild! Ghost Opera came quickly after this, and the band showed that they were happy to come in close contact with the audience; in fact, they had built up a special catwalk which filled most of the photo-pit, giving them the chance to get real close and personal with the fans. Ryd may have been a bit invisible while doing her backing vocals for this one, but the fact that they used a live violinist was very cool and added to the feeling of the song in a nice way.
After this, and some chatting from Lione and guitarist Thomas Youngblood, it was time for the first song (in more than one way) off their latest album, namely The Great Pandemonium, and this was also the first time we got to meet Karevik, as he sung the parts Björn ‘Speed’ Strid (Soilwork) sings on the album.

After this the show played just like you would expect from a popular and professional band; the setlist might not have held the greatest of surprises, but it was a good collection of hits which went straight into the hearts of the gathered fans, and Lione commented that the band was particularly happy to end the show here with us tonight (well, he had to, didn’t he?).
Solo’s were given from all but Youngblood (can’t imagine why), even Lione had time for a little sing along. My favourite was the bass solo of Sean Tibbetts however, as he clearly had the best connection going with the crowd, whereas I thought that the drumming of Casey Grillo dragged on a bit. He did however end on a funny note as he dropped his sticks and just beat away on the drums with his hands, I didn’t see that one coming.
Both Karevik and Ryd did a fine job on the vocal parts as well, and the biggest surprise of the show came with Karevik moving from backing to lead vocalist on the song Center Of The Universe, a job he surely could handle as well.

As I mentioned earlier, this was the last show of the tour, and as such you can normally expect some pranks to be made, this being no exception – for the final track, March Of Mephisto, Kamelot is known to make use of two females to play extra percussion during the intro, here however, the women had been replaced by Tommy Novak (the drumtech) and Dirk Zeiser (the tourmanager). Zeiser had somehow been pressed into the dress of one of the women, and Novak wore the large white robe which Ryd had used in A Sailorman’s Hymn; and how pretty they both looked…
On a not so humoristic note, but well done nonetheless, was the vocal guest appearance of Jake E. Berg, the clean singing male vocalist of Amaranthe, in the song Karma.
But Lione was after all the main vocalist for the show, and he certainly has the experience to fill the shoes. His voice doesn’t go quite as deep as Khan’s, but there was nothing to complain about in his execution of the songs. The only thing I was missing was the drama that Khan brings to the performance; Lione is a good frontman, but somehow this felt more like a ‘normal’ metal show, if something like that even exists…

Still, a good show all in all. Not the best I’ve seen by Kamelot, last years’ performance at the Magic Circle Festival still holds that position, but certainly professional and entertaining. I wonder where they will go from here…

Setlist:

Rule The World
Ghost Opera
The Great Pandemonium
The Human Stain
Center Of The Universe
Descent Of The Archangel
A Sailorman’s Hymn
When The Lights Are Down
Soul Society
Solo (Oliver Palotai)
EdenEcho
The Haunting (Somewhere In Time)
Necropolis
Solo (Casey Grillo)
Forever
Solo (Sean Tibbetts)
Karma
March Of Mephisto