A View From The Back Of The Room: Lacuna Coil (Live Review By Paul)

Lacuna Coil – The Marble Factory, Bristol

This year’s surprisingly heavy and very good Delirium release was sufficiently tempting to facilitate a return across the Bridge a mere 48 hours after we had seen Blues Pills at the same venue. Although Lacuna Coil has been around since the late 1990s, they are not the most frequent visitors to these parts. Two shows in the Welsh Capital, 2006 and 2011 and only a few more in Bristol, the last being in 2014 at The Anson Rooms. Their appeal is widespread but it was still a pleasant surprise to see the gig sell-out.

Of course, the problem with sell-out gigs in smaller venues such as The Marble Factory is that it becomes very tight in terms of space quite quickly. Taking a steadier approach to avoid the worst of the rush hour traffic, Mr B, Mrs H and I arrived at the venue just as openers Genus Ordinis Dei closed their set to a huge ovation from an already very busy venue. From the little we heard they sound like a band worth checking out.

Having made our way to the far right we were pretty pleased to have found space on the barrier which afforded a great view of the majority of stage action. Main support Forever Still (5) was up next. The band, from Copenhagen gave it their all but their generic, rather bland songs, combined with multiple off stage enhancements (backing vocals, additional guitars, synths etc.) soon became a little dull and whilst they got a decent reception from the crowd, it was more pleasing when their set ended.

No such problems for Lacuna Coil (9) who were simply on fire. The Milan based outfit hit the stage with Ultimate Ratio, the closing track on Delirium and proceeded to blow a hole in the roof of the venue. Tighter than I’d ever seen them, and with the front duo of Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro in stunning form, the Milanese based outfit tore through a set rammed full of classics and a healthy seven tracks from the new release. This was the first night of the UK tour and the Bristol crowd set the bar high. There was excellent audience participation during Heaven’s A Lie, Trip The Darkness and Our Truth before the cover of Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence engaged even those who weren’t as familiar with the back catalogue.

A bone crunching Nothing Stands In Our Way led to the three track encore. First up was Delirium, followed by the heavy as fuck Zombies from the underrated Broken Crown Halo. Just when you thought that was it, Lacuna Coil finished everyone off with the LOG style House Of Shame, possibly the heaviest track they’ve ever written. A fine performance from a band that is right back on track.