ICED EARTH 

- King Cross "Scala", Sunday 20th January 2002

Anthemic power metal played with passion and precision that takes any nu-metal combo you could name well and truly to the cleaners. Cast your mind back to a few hours earlier though and the evening had been on the brink of disaster.

I arrive at 7:15pm, the doors should have been opened at 7 but are still firmly shut and a healthy queue has built up outside. I take my place in a line that does not move forward for 40 minutes. The weather is cold and bracing with a swirling rain that is getting more bracing all the time! In front of me is a courting couple in the early throes of a romance who insist on engaging in mouth athletics every two seconds. Respect to the guy for taking his beloved on a first date to an Iced Earth concert but does the world and his mother really need to see such prolonged displays of affection in a stagnant queue; and not just any queue, but one in Kings Cross!!

Upon finally getting in the venue just after 8 o'clock I walk up a maze of stairs in a venue totally unknown to me and hear an almighty racket coming from behind a door. I wander in to check out the support act, desperate for a slash and absolutely parched, only to find Matt Barlow, Jon Schaffer and the boys, denim clad, already on stage. I stand behind a seven-foot oaf to witness the likes of "Night of the Stormrider" and "Brainwash" from their early days before finally bowing to the inevitable and finding the latrine. I then take up residence on the balcony (after discovering the T-shirts had all sold out before I had got in the venue) to again see fuck all before finally managing to find the right set of stairs and a elusive corridor to get down to the front. I stand in the pit for five minutes before the lights go on and the curtain closes (literally) as the band depart. It is now 8:45 and the evening appears at an end - just what the hell is going on?

But there are no mutterings of discontent amongst the faithful who go to the bar. Sensing they know something I don't I follow suit. 10 minutes later and reinvigorated after a pint of Carling the curtains re-open, the band re-appear now in mandatory leathers to a background of Egyptian hieroglyphs around the drum riser. "The Burning Times" leaps out of the speakers, closely followed by "Watching Over Me", "The Suffering Trilogy" and indeed the lions share of the "Dark Saga" album. The bands momentum is only interrupted by chants from the crowd, ("ICED EARTH, ICED EARTH!").  Best of all though the band close with the incredible twenty minute "Something Wicked Trilogy" (Iced Earth are fond of Trilogy's!). They then depart and the curtains close again. Once more people mill around and I realise not a single song has been aired from their current "Horrow Show" set. It is probably only then that it finally dawns on me just what the band are up to...

The curtains open again with Jon Schaffer now sporting a cape and a backdrop of portraits of various grisly characters adorning the walls, the band stride through the current instalment of their career. "Frankenstein", "Jeckyl and Hyde", "Dracula" a cover of Iron Maidens "Transylvania" which got the dandruff flying (including mine!) and the "Omen Trilogy" (see I told you). Then the curtain closes again and after the encore it really is the end.

I have never witnessed anything quite like it. Few bands would have the balls to divide their careers up into pieces like this, do three sets and change the stage persona for each. And what a performance. Like Judas Priest and Saxon, before Christmas, Iced Earth are consummate professionals. Using every inch of the tiny stage and regularly involving the crowd, who themselves are a mix with a healthy number of teenagers. The early hassles in the queue and the problems with a generally shit venue are forgotten in this triumph.

The year 2001 was a great year for gigs but 2002 will simply not get any better than this, even with Iron Maiden around the corner!

-Andrew Lees

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