Opeth @ The Enmore (Dec 16)

Excellent show from the Swedish death metal maestros. A particular highlight was singer/guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt's charismatic stage presence. Between tracks he engaged the audience with entertaining banter, delivered in a minimalist, dead-pan style. e.g. "On this guitar, the low E string is tuned down to D. People do that to make it sound heavier. When you tune down to D, even a shit riff sounds great... Okay, so we're gonna play some shit riffs for you now...". Also worth mention was a fantastic drum solo from drummer Martin "Axe" Axenrot.

One disappointment was the response of some rowdy crowd members who repeatedly shouted through some of the quieter, atmospheric acoustic tracks: "Play some f**king metal!". In part, the frustration of these "fans" was probably based on the fact that Opeth's latest album is a departure from their usual death metal sound into more of prog-folk-metal sound (in other words, a sound that doesn't really fit neatly into a recognized genre). Fair enough, it's no fun to see your favourite band come to band and belt out a bunch of wacky tunes from a duff new album. But that was hardly the case here: anyone who knows Opeth music knows that they've never been just about heavy music, and many of the acoustic songs were, indeed, from older albums.