Despite the change of sound over the year, the band remain popular. The Utilita Arena may not be one of the country's biggest arenas, but it is still a big venue compared to most - and it was busy on Friday. I do not think that the show was sold out - but Within Temptation have always felt a bit caught between large theatre-type venues and arenas in the UK. There was a healthy crowd already in place when the evening's sole support act Annisokay, from Germany, took to the stage. There were supposed to be two support acts, but Ukraine's Blind8 had to drop out of parts of the tour due on-going military commitment - so Annisokay was left to warm the crowd up themselves. I had not heard of the band before they were announced as being part of this tour - although they have been going for a while at this point. Sadly, though, the band turned out to be the sort of chugging metalcore/post-hardcore that I have very little interest in - and Within Temptation bringing them along probably shows where the Dutch band's head is when it comes to the current metal scene. I do like some metalcore, but Annisokay's was the most bland type imaginable. Metalcore is at its best when the bands ape the melodic guitar leads of the Swedish melodic death metal bands and employ classic metal hooks (think Killswitch Engage and early Trivium) - but when bands rely on big synths and chugging guitars with no discernible riffs I lose interest very quickly. They did employ the traditional mix of harsh and clean vocals, but nominal frontman and harsh vocalist Rudi Schwarzer spent much of the set being a glorified backing vocalist, as some of the songs featured limited input from him, whilst more extended harsh vocal sections tended to consist of those rap-adjacent harsh vocals which have become popular in parts of the metalcore scene in recent years. Bandleader Christoph Wieczorek (vocals/guitar) did most of the singing and talking to the crowd, his emo-esque voice contrasting with the down-tuned guitar chugs, but there was quite a lot of the set when he was not playing his guitar - and there was definitely guitar to be heard coming out of the speakers. As such, Annisokay are clearly one of those bands who rely extremely heavily on backing tracks - and it was clear that so much of what made up Annisokay's sound was not live. Most of the songs were extremely synth-driven, so slower parts of the songs sometimes only had the drummer actually playing - and there were clearly guitar riffs going on when Wieczorek was not even touching his guitar. As such, even though I was not really enjoying the band's set much up to the point I noticed this, my respect levels immediately dropped - and I was glad when their set came to an end. They generally only received a muted reaction from the crowd, too, so I imagine others in the room were feeling similar to me - and it was really only Within Temptation's frontwoman Sharon den Adel's brief cameo for a song she collaborated with Annisokay on and a cover of Linkin Park's One Step Closer which received any sort of attention.
Thankfully, though, it was not all that long before the lights went down following the blandness of what had come before and Within Temptation took to the stage. With a grand stage set which included Greek-esque columns, some big, well-used screens, and lots of raised areas for the band members to stand on - Within Temptation have certainly transitioned well to life in arenas. I have said before how some bands, with Alter Bridge springing to mind, struggle to transition to arenas when it comes to staging and presentation - but this was not a problem for Within Temptation, whose stage set felt really at home in the large room. For the next 90 or so minutes, then, the Dutch band rattled through a powerful 17-song set which generally covered their career. The opening segment was very much focused on the now, but as the set moved on there were plenty of dips back into the past for long-time fans. The first five songs, though, all came from Bleed Out. I have made my thoughts on the album clear but, in fairness, this opening portion did not drag. As is often the case, the songs from the latest album came over better live than they do on the album - and the tracks played were generally the better cuts from Bleed Out in my opinion. We Go to War kicked things off, with den Adel wearing a fancy mask to match her flowing black dress - whilst the rest of the band stood statuesque around the stage. The newer material generally chugs along, with the guitars of Ruud Jolie and Stefan Helleblad doubling down on the crunch, whilst the keyboard textures of Martijn Spierenburg provided plenty of depth. The newer songs are very vocal focused, though, and den Adel sounded as good as ever. She remains one of the strongest non-classical-adjacent vocalists in the symphonic metal genre - with her mix of smoothness and the occasional more throaty grit bringing the set to life. The more epic and slightly older-school Bleed Out was an early highlight, thanks to its gothic-tinged chorus - but the overall highlight of this suite of newer cuts, though, was a barnstorming rendition of Wireless, a track which harks back to the band's older sound a little. Bleed Out has perhaps been better received compared to my personal views, but it was still brave for a big band to open a show with five new songs one after the other. The suite was well-received, though, but I did feel that the overall quality and atmosphere improved as the set moved along - with the pulsing synths of The Reckoning and the rawer Shot in the Dark kicking things up a notch. The latter showcased that Within Temptation can really shine when they focus on more intricate guitar melodies, though, with Jolie including plenty of interesting riffs throughout - before Helleblad launched into a shredded solo.
The anthemic oldie Stand My Ground was thrown in as always, which everyone sang along to, but perhaps a surprise overall highlight was the hard rocking new cut A Fool's Parade - a stand-alone single released earlier this year. The band brought out Ukrainian musician Alex Yarmak to duet with den Adel and the two worked well together - with the song's big chorus and heavy breakdown better than much of the material that ended up on Bleed Out. Given Blind8 and Yarmak's involvement in the tour, there was a bit of time given over to the plight of the Ukraine - but then there was a real trip back into the past with The Promise, and it was the first of three songs to feature former Nightwish frontwoman Tarja Turunen. Turunen, like Yarmak, has been guesting within the band on and off throughout the tour - and her operatic vocals made The Promise really tick. Turunen does not really sing like that so much these days, but hearing her in full-blown classical mode against the song's gothic backdrop was a real treat - with the band then covering Turunen's dense ballad I Feel Immortal, which proved to be another excellent duet. By this point there was not too much time left, but the main set still included the upbeat grooves of Supernova and the harder rock strut of Faster, which den Adel sang in true rockstar mode, before the band briefly retreated to the wings. A four-song encore followed, though, which mostly consisted of symphonic metal oldies. The dramatic Our Solemn Hour kicked off the encore, which was a reminder of how bombastic the band used to be, before the delicate ballad All I Need was a real phones-in-the-air moment. With Turunen in tow, a rendition of Paradise (What About Us?) was inevitable, so Turunen popped back out to due with den Adel one last time, before the evergreen Mother Earth saw the show come to a bombastic close. It brought the night to a powerful end and the large crowd certainly made their pleasure felt as the band took their bows. The setlist was:
We Go to War
Bleed Out
Ritual
Don't Pray for Me
Wireless
The Reckoning
Shot in the Dark
Stand My Ground
A Fool's Parade [w/ Alex Yarmak]
The Promise [w/ Tarja Turunen]
I Feel Immortal [Tarja cover w/ Tarja Turunen]
Supernova
Faster
-
Our Solemn Hour
All I Need
Paradise (What About Us?) [w/ Tarja Turunen]
Mother Earth
Whilst I might not listen to Within Temptation as often I used to, I still had a great time with them in Cardiff on Friday. They are the sort of band that generally seem to deliver live, Bloodstock aside, and, as is so often the case, the new material came across better live. I found myself enjoying some of the songs which I had not enjoyed that much previously - and there were still plenty of old favourites and deeper cuts included, too. Turunen really gave the set a boost, too, and she really helped to make The Promise one of the set's most powerful moments. There is still plenty left in the Within Temptation tank it seems, I just hope that the band starts to realise what it was that made them so great in the past and start to refocus their sound in that direction again.
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