Dark Tranquillity & Insomnium
January 26, 2015
Grove of Anaheim- Anaheim, CA
Melodic death metal acts Dark Tranquillity and Insomnium teamed up for a tour that would surely put a smile on the faces of fans of melodic death metal. Fans gathered at the Grove of Anaheim in Anaheim, California for an unforgettable experience between two highly-loved bands.
Insomnium is a metal band from Finland and even though they’re not as widely known as other Finnish metal bands, they still attracted their own fan-base to the show. Insomnium released their newest album, Shadows of the Dying Sun in 2014 and are on tour to support that album. When the lights dimmed down to signal that Insomnium was about to begin, the crowd screamed, cheered, and yelled the band’s name as their fan-base was eager to see them whether it was their first time seeing them or they had seen them before. Insomnium started things off with the first track off their new album called The Primeval Dark which had the perfect intro to start the show as it built suspense and gave each member a chance to appear one by one before frontman and bassist Niilo Sevänen started belting out his melodic death metal growls that give Insomnium their unique sound. Throughout the show, Insomnium played a few more tracks from their 
new album and mixed it up with tracks from their previous albums. When Insomnium announced they were playing their final song of the night, they were met with a loud cry of disappointment as their fans felt that their set was way too short. Insomnium insured everyone that they’d be back again and hopefully for a headlining tour.
Dark Tranquillity is another melodic death metal band that comes from Gothenburg, Sweden and are one of the longest-standing bands from the original Gothenburg metal scene. With the release of their tenth studio album called Construct, Dark Tranquillity continued their “Construct World Tour”. When the time came for Dark Tranquillity to come on stage, The Grove was ready and set for one of Sweden’s finest metal bands. Dark Tranquillity started their set with The Science of Noise off their new album, the perfect song to start a flawless set. Frontman Mikael Stanne was in full force and very excited to be performing for the Orange County fans and showed it by running around on stage, executing his melodic death vocals to which sounded just like the album, and of course interacting with the fans up front. He took the time to tell the fans that they were loud and crazy compared to San Francisco the previous night. Dark Tranquillity did a great job of mixing up their setlist with a blend of new tunes from the new album and throwing in classics like Therein, White Noise/Black Silence, Misery’s Crown, and The Mundane and the Magic. Mikael Stanne made it clear he was enjoying watching the crowd near the front of the stage by pointing out how much activity was going on. The crowd was on their feet jumping and screaming. There was a mosh pit going on the whole time and anyone and everyone near the area would surely feel being squished and crushed by it. Crowd surfers were also very common as they seemed to spawn out of nowhere and made their way over everyone as if they were in an assembly line. The only disappointing part about the show was that the venue seemed to be about half full. Dark Tranquillity noticed that, but I’m sure in their minds they’d rather have a half full venue with dedicated fans than a full venue with clueless people. It eventually came time for Dark Tranquillity to call it a night by playing two encore songs, then thanking everyone for coming out and you can tell by the smiles on their faces that they were very satisfied with everyone and will be looking forward to returning.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Dark Tranquillity
Insomnium
