After the huge success that was Neurosis at Copenhell last year, we just had to go see them again, now that the opportunity arose.
Was it still as good, better, or had that show been lightning in a bottle? We were about to find out.

I was surprised to see that such a relatively big name had almost no crowd waiting for them when they took the stage.
The band members entered in silence, and didn't bother with speaking at any point. The spaces between songs were instead filled with sound effects from the keyboard. This of course helped build an all-over atmosphere for the gig, but it didn't help with connecting to the crowd, some of which I'm sure didn't know the band beforehand.
Still, the crowd grew quickly when Neurosis began playing, and after only a short time there was a lot of people gathered. In a way, I'd almost prefer it to stay small though, as it soon became evident that crowd behaviour was at a low point - there was so much talking, that it almost deafened out the music in the calmer sections!

Yet, the band played on, and that was good. That super atmosphere from the earlier gig had a hard time finding its place, and the band felt quite anonymous in the start. After a while though, trying to tune out the people around, closing my eyes and focusing on the music, the feeling began creeping in, and at the best of times, I could once again feel the exhilaration I felt last year. At The Well was a highlight of the set, where everything came together in just the right way.
The band performed well as well. I mean, you can't expect much liveliness from what is essentially a bunch of shoegazers, but it looked like they were well in tune with the music and feeling they wanted to deliver. Especially keyboardist Noah Landis stood out this time, as he gave himself up to the sound, often using his entire setup as an extended prop for his delivery.

Neurosis was actually delivering pretty much the same kind of hand they dealt the last time we saw them. The one major difference was that it had been on a small stage, where the band was directly in our faces, whereas this was on the main stage of the festival, where they themselves were more spread out from each other, and much further from the audience.
My take on it, Neurosis know what they have and how they want to deliver it, and what they have and the way they deliver it, simply works best in close quarters.
I enjoyed the show; at times shining in brilliance, yet for the most part just being very good.