[Dajana] At this year’s edition of Rock Hard Festival ORCHID caused quite a stir, playing their first metal festival ever and so shot themselves into the awareness of the common metal head. A half year later ORCHID embark on their first European headliner tour, entering all those known metal affiliated clubs to play sold out shows. At least the kick-off show at – where else – Essen’s finest • Turock Club • was sold out. What a great beginning for such journey!
[BRT] Well, ORCHID are already on the go with the everlasting Classic/Rock retro hype for quite some time. That they play a comparatively small club makes me even wonder…

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[Dajana] The evening gets surprisingly kicked off by :: ZODIAC :: a band from my hometown Muenster (it’s member recruit from faded Misery Speaks). ZODIAC only play a few selected shows on this tour, getting prepared for the upcoming US tour supporting Monster Magnet. Unfortunately ZODIAC begin very early. Half of the audience is still queuing at the entry. And they play a very short show. Only 4 tracks, 3 from the just released and highly acclaimed sophomore A Hiding Place, and the great crusher Coming Home from the debut A Bit Of Devil. But those 20, 25 minutes were like a revelation. At least to me, as I never saw them playing live before or dealt with their music any closer. I know… shame on me!
Tonight ZODIAC get accompanied by an organ its player remained quiet in the right corner. I realized a little later that is leg was in plaster. Sound was quite undifferentiated during the entire evening but for that ZODIAC had at least the best lights ;) Great but way too short show!
[BRT] Being caught in the endless queue it took even longer for me to get in. So I only got the last two songs, to me sounding like a mix of ZZ Top, Free and Thin Lizzy. Awesome performance of a great band and a singer with an impressing voice. Man… the bar got raised high for all following bands.
Setlist: Downtown, Free, Believer, Coming Home

[Dajana] Next up are Texan lads :: SCORPION CHILD ::, also playing 70s influenced classic Rock. They released their self-titled debut in summer and scored highly. Musically they are for sure really, really great but tonight they could not hook me up. Although they were extremely lively on stage and rocking out hard their music felt lengthy. Don’t ask me why, I just felt like that…
[BRT] Led Zeppelin worshippers SCORPION CHILD kick off with full force and go through their set in a high-action-full-speed-mode, what killed the dynamics the songs actually own. Yes, they rocked the house, but in a way that did not leave a deeper impression, if you know what I mean. Well… it’s Rock… good show though.

[Dajana] The very reverse Swedish:: BLUES PILLS :: managed to do. I already got told a lot about them (they also played the Turock some time ago) and they got warmly recommended to me. All of you who have done this: yes, you’ve been right. BLUES PILLS are one amazing band! Here wonderful Elin Larsson takes center, who in fact does not look like Janis Joplin but definitely owns comparable qualities when it comes to voice and charisma. BLUES PILLS is a very young band but their guitar player Dorian Sorriaux made me smile though. I think he looks a bit like Anathema’s Vincent Cavanagh back in the early 90s ;)
[BRT] When Nuclear Blast jumps onto a trend it necessarily does not mean good quality. But in the case of BLUES PILLS they did it right. Boys and super charismatic front woman Elin Larsson pay homage to the late 60s and avoid vexed Led-Sabbath-Purple quotes. Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin and British Blues Rock are indeed better references. The music of BLUES PILLS has so much soul, flow and dynamics and rocks hard without high speed.
Setlist: Intro, Black Smoke, Astral Plane, Dig In, Bliss, Little Sun, Mind Exit, Giver, Devil’s Man

[Dajana] Ok, time has come… with a longer break than before… for :: ORCHID :: Fans pushed close to the stage and it became very cuddly in the front row. The Californian cats set in with Heretic and the sold out Turock started to seethe. Girls started screaming, especially for bass player Keith Nickel. Singer Theo Mindell preferred not to communicate with the crowd, instead he was talking to his band members or hectically scrolling his (huge) lyric book its pages were not sorted in order of the setlist. Okay, it’s the first day on tour and some things might still need to be harmonized (not knowing the lyrics is quite odd though). However, it all did not narrow show and atmosphere any bit, much the opposite. Crowd was almost freaking out and most of the songs are perfectly made to play live with a lot of punch and drive. It was just awesome. After Black Funeral Theo went on with a naked torso, clapping meaningful on his… well-rounded belly, grinning. Don’t ask for the girls in the front row… *sighs*. ORCHID play an hour and add two songs for an encore. Woohoo. Right after the club gets emptied quickly for the following Friday party. Most of the band members join the fans, chat and sign. I was thinking of a party too but music was too bad so I decided to ride the highway back home. Let me mention that ORCHID will play next year’s Party San Open Air ;) I anyway had a great evening with amazingly great bands! Thanks for that!
[BRT] Ah, Black Funeral and Capricorn are veritable hits, no doubt, but after around 40 minutes ORCHID more and more lost power, which probably is due to the much limited voice volume of Theo Mindell. Again we got a lively and great show offered but compared with Zodiac and the Blues Pills ORCHID fell short.
[Dajana] Maybe it was just due to the fact that four bands in a row of the same genre are just a bit draining and exhausting musically and the headliner pays the toll…
Setlist: Heretic, Mouths Of Madness, Capricorn, Silent One, Eastern Woman, Masters Of It All, Black Funeral, Eyes Behind The Wall, Down Into The Earth, He Who Walks Alone // Wizard Of War, Saviours Of The Blind