Dark Tranquility
November 30, 2016
Grove of Anaheim, Anaheim, CA
Swedish melodic death metal legends Dark Tranquillity released their eleventh studio album titled Atoma on November 4, 2016. Soon after, they embarked on a trek across the USA and a few Canadian dates. They are one of the longest-standing bands from the original Gothenburg metal scene. The band’s fanbase was shocked earlier this year when they learned that rhythm guitarist and founding member Martin Henriksson left the band due to loss of passion for playing music. One of the many stops on the tour was the Grove in Anaheim, California where they frequently make their SoCal stop. Sadly, even for a band of their caliber, not a very large number of fans came out to the show. The fact that the show was on a Wednesday may have had something to do with it.
The lights went out and the fans cheered as the band members came out, starting the show with Force of Hand from the new album. Frontman Mikael Stanne came out last and started singing the song with his traditional growling vocals. Even with a small crowd in attendance, that didn’t stop the band from showing that they were having fun performing for their fans. Stanne had a huge smile the whole time, and regularly interacted with fans by fist bumping them and shaking their hands. For the second song, Dark Tranquillity played The Lesser Faith from their Fiction (2007) album which is a fan favorite among the fans so cheers were heard when the song was played. Atoma from the new album was next and fans enjoyed listening to new material that the band had been working on for months. One of the newer songs played was The Science of Noise from their previous Construct album. Even if you aren’t familiar with the band’s music, you can feel the energy in the venue as you could feel the fans’ love for the band as they smiled and sang along to the music.
Dark Tranquillity would continue to please their fans by playing fan favorite tracks for them to sing along to like: Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive), The Silence In Between, White Noise/Black Silence, and Final Resistance. Near the end of the show, Stanne said a few words to fans thanking them for coming out and supporting not only the band, but live music as well. Dark Tranquillity played the fan favorite and sing along ThereIn then left the stage as the show seemed to be over. The fans stuck around and the band came back out for some encores. The first encore was State of Trust. There was supposed to only be one more encore, but Stanne decided since the fans were so awesome and supportive of them, they decided to throw in an extra encore song in between and played Through Smudged Lenses. It was time for the show to come to an end and so for the final song of the night, Dark Tranquillity played one of their biggest hits, Misery’s Crown. The show finished and the band came out to shake hands with fans then bowed to them and left with huge smiles on their faces.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
