It’s a big night for Se Delan. Not only is their debut album The Fall due to be released the following day (although copies are available from the merch desk tonight), but this is their first UK gig – in fact, their first gig, period. They arrive on stage in near-silence, and it’s only when Belinda Kordic takes position behind her mic that the audience appears to realise that this is the support act – clearly we don’t have many Crippled Black Phoenix fans in the crowd tonight, who would have already identified the unassuming Justin Greaves on guitar. Following a minimum of tuning and a few nervous looks, the band launch into the opening track from The Fall, 'Intro', rapidly followed by 'Chasing Changes', and almost immediately a hush falls.
This is Se Delan’s strength: they effortlessly conjure an atmosphere of glacial unease that’s more effective at stopping audience chatter than the loudest metal riffing would be. Their third song, the fragile and eerie 'Little One', only magnifies the effect. After the song, there's a few seconds of utter silence as the intimacy of the song fades before the applause begins.
It’s only a few songs into Se Delan's support slot that Kordic, who appears to have been in a state of near-trance throughout the set, seems to realise that she has not said a word to the audience. Her attitude seems to be one of letting the music do the talking, and her terse, Hope Sandoval-esque approach to audience banter leaves the audience wondering how best to react. Whilst Se Delan’s icy instrumental tendrils hardly lend themselves to barrow-boy hijinks from their frontwoman, there’s little doubt that many feel unsure how to take Kordic’s near-monosyllabic approach.
The aptly-named 'Dirge' - which has been doing the rounds as a promotional track for the bands album - brings the house down, however, and the applause that greets Se Delan - minus Kordic, who has stalked wordlessly off stage during the outro of closing song 'Lost Never Found' - at the end of their all-too short set is genuinely warm. It’s good to see a few copies of The Fall departing from the merch table, clutched in eager hands, during the pause before Gazpacho take to the stage. Considering that this was Se Delan’s first live show, there’s real potential here, although perhaps a greater connection with their audience might improve things.
Gazpacho, on the other hand, return as conquering heroes. It's taken them a while to build an audience, despite a leg up from Marillion, who provided Gazpacho with a number of support slots over several years in the 2000s. A few short years ago, scarcely a couple of dozen people turned up to the band's London show in support of their album Tick Tock - and whilst the band would undoubtedly insist that they prefer quality to quantity, it must have been dispiriting. The band's subsequent signing to the much-loved Kscope label has unquestionably gone a long way towards helping this hugely talented band attract more of the attention and plaudits they so richly deserve. Reassuringly, audiences have been rather larger at more recent shows.
An intro tape comprising music from Demon’s centrepiece, the epic 'Death Room', is played to build atmosphere, the band arriving on-stage to the sound of a ticking clock and film of a clock running rapidly forwards on the rear projection screen. The ticking is instantly familiar to the faithful, and there is a loud cheer as everyone heralds the opener, 'Tick Tock'. The first two parts of the fan favourite are played to reverent near-silence from the spellbound crowd, Jan Henrik Ohme's soaring, effortlessly emotive vocals cresting a tide of power chords, eerie choral interludes and plaintive violin underpinned by seismic drumming. The audience is transfixed; between notes you could hear a pin drop. When the band grind to a halt, however, the crash ending of Tick Tock II is nearly drowned out by the applause. Gazpacho audiences really know how to listen. They also love what they are listening to.
If anything, this is simultaneously Gazpacho's greatest weakness and their greatest strength: their live shows are geared firmly towards the die-hards, the fans who know the albums forwards and backwards and who visibly hang on every note, every evocative musical passage. To these fans, the construction of the songs, and the pregnant gaps between musical set-pieces are as important as the notes themselves. Gazpacho understand drama: the perfect moment to play that note, the perfect moment to pause and wait for everyone to draw breath. For the most part, the concepts of the verse and the chorus are roundly ignored, the peaks and troughs of the pieces laid out like topographical features. Gazpacho's songs don't feel so much planned or written as grown. Consequently, their live shows are banquets for the faithful and both bewildering and - given time, one suspects - bewitching for newcomers to the Norwegians' epic soundscaping.
With most of the set comprised of more recent material from the conceptual albums Night, Tick Tock, Missa Atropos, March Of Ghosts and Demon, the sole concession to the band's early material is a real surprise. 'Vulture', from the band’s little-showcased third album, Firebird, is played early in the set. It’s perhaps a reflection of the band’s more recent successes that it receives the quietest reception of the night, although its more electronic feel has heads nodding and the blood-curdling lyric is a perfect fit with the band's new material.
The material from Demon is given a mid-set slot all of its own, the band understandably unwilling to break it up throughout the set. With the dense and lengthy 'Death Room' not in the set – the band later admit that they really aren’t ready to tackle it on stage – Demon is represented by the first three tracks from the album, the two parts of 'I’ve Been Walking' broken up by the briefer musical palette-cleanser that is 'The Wizard Of Altai Mountains'. If there was any question that the unpredictable ‘polka’ section of 'The Wizard…' would be difficult for the band to pull off live, they swiftly dispel any doubts with an effortless display that relieves some of the tension built up by the exceedingly tense first part of 'I’ve Been Walking'. Demon may be dividing opinions among listeners, but live the material really comes into its own, the heavier sections crackling with energy and contrasting beautifully with the glacial calm of the keyboard and violin-led segments that possess a breathtaking, tragic quality that appears to suspend time altogether, Mikael Krømer's truly outstanding turns on violin and mandolin almost a second lead vocal. Krømer receives an ovation of his own after some of his solo spots, seemingly much to his embarrassment. Thomas Andersen's keyboards are equally as crucial to the new material, though: more often than not, they are the glue that binds together the varied parts of the whole. The moments when Andersen and Ohme are essentially duetting are both spooky and moving: several times the other band members can be caught watching Ohme as he powerfully emotes his way through some pretty harrowing material.
Some much-beloved fan favourites are scattered through the set: the lilting sing-along beauty of 'Winter Is Never' forms a perfect antidote to the intensity of the Demon material, whilst the likes of the propulsive 'Golem' - driven along by Lars Erik Asp's powerful drumming - and the muscular 'Vera', which closes the main set tonight, receive loud and enthusiastic responses from the crowd. Jon-Arne Vilbo on guitar has been a largely static but powerful fulcrum for the band all evening, but the ending of 'Vera' sees him hamming it up beautifully for the crowd, who cheer him on as he builds up a wall of powerful riffing for the song's ending.
As if to prove that there is always at least one more beloved treat up their sleeves, the encore is fashioned from two lengthy tracks from the band's breakthrough album Night, and if 'Upside Down' proves as popular as ever, the Assembly goes positively bananas for the infrequently performed 'Massive Illusion', which contains a chant-along section for the by-now delirious crowd to get stuck into and an enormous, almost Zeppelin-esque coda. Unfortunately, a tighter curfew means that we don’t get the final encore that is on the set list ('Marie Celeste', from March Of Ghosts), but as the lights come up the applause is long and loud, and everyone is on their feet. If the band sometimes appear faintly embarrassed taking their bows, it's a reminder that this band have not long celebrated their tenth anniversary. With eight albums under their belts already, their ambition undimmed and their star firmly in the ascendance, there's a real sense that Gazpacho are still just warming up. Where they will go from here is anyone's guess, but one thing is sure: it'll be worth hitching a ride.
