The Z Files

I consider myself lucky to have gotten the chance to see After Forever tonight on their first North American tour, especially considering that I only started listening to them around the holidays last year. In that span of maybe ten months, they’ve become my second-favorite band.

I arrived at the Funhaus in Toronto (the show had been moved from the larger Opera House) only 20 minutes before doors and was surprised to see only 10 or so people waiting ahead of me. After getting inside, I planted myself against the stage toward stage left, where I knew AF guitarist/grunter Sander Gommans would be stationed.

I was surprised that there was no local opener. Unexpect opened the show with a seriously twisted brand of metal. I can’t even describe it…they were just totally whacked. I hadn’t heard of them before, but I’ll be checking them out after that performance.

After Forever was every bit as good as I had hoped. The early songs were hampered by problems with Sander Gommans’s guitar rig: his wireless died only seconds into “Discord.” The tech wired him up with a guitar cable, but it took a few songs to get everything straightened out. The performance itself was excellent, though. Everyone was on their game. The set list was strong. They did a rendition of Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” with Bas Maas on lead vocals. The selections from the new album were strong. I was especially happy to hear “Lonely,” as I’m a sucker for the piano ballads. I wish they had played more than one song from Invisible Circles, but the set was still nice as it was.

After the show, the band came out to meet fans at the merch table. I was impressed by that. I was planning to hang out at the bus and try to meet the band, but it was a really nice gesture that they would come out like that. I met Floor, Bas, Joost van den Broek and Luuk van Gerven. I saw Andre Borgman, but he disappeared before I could get to him. I didn’t see Sander, which is kind of a shame because he was the person I most wanted to meet, apart from Floor. Despite that, it was a great way to close out a very memorable evening.

Photos at Flickr, setlist after the jump…

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I was digging a little, and I discovered that Toronto will be playing host to Kamelot, Epica, Sonata Arctica and Nightwish on 8/24, 9/15, 9/24 and 10/23, respectively. Looks like I’ll be putting a bunch of mileage on the new car…! And that’s just bands that have announced dates so far. I’m expecting dates from Symphony X, After Forever, Within Temptation and more, and hoping for Dream Theater. Thankfully, these Euro bands’ ticket prices are very reasonable, otherwise I’d be in the po’ house.

Oh man, do I wanna go to ProgPower USA this fall!! I already knew that Sonata Arctica was headlining one day and that the support bands included Freak Kitchen, Threshold and Vanden Plas. I just found out that After Forever is going to be closing the festival!

I’m gonna give this some thought, but at this moment I think I’m gonna try to score a ticket. Yeah, it would cost me a couple weeks’ pay to make the trip, but I think it would be worth it.

Even if I don’t make it to Atlanta for ProgPower (there are only 900 tickets available to the general public), After Forever is going to be doing other shows in the US. I just hope that they get somewhere within reasonable driving distance. That’s one band that I would really love to see live.

That Griffin Elevator that I wrote about last week arrived on Monday. I dig it…it’s a marked improvement over the ugly 3-ring binder that I was using as a stand. The presents-for-myself spree continues with a new order from CD Universe that I’m hoping to receive next week sometime:

• Kamelot One Cold Winter’s Night The new live DVD.
• Kamelot Karma One step closer to filling my Kam collection.
• After Forever Invisible Circles My first disc from a band I’ve been meaning to check out for quite a while.
• Threshold Hypothetical See above.
• Sonata Arctica Winterheart’s Guild This finishes my Sonata catalog.