Threshold concert, September 8th 2007

On the 8th of September I attended a concert of a British progressive metal band Threshold. This band does not count among the most famous even within the progrock/metal genre and unfortunately obviously they also do not have many fans in the Czech republic. The concert has proven this quite clearly.
Few words about the band: these guys manage to combine the metal energy with beatiful tunes, their songs range from rock ballads to hard&heavy songs, but even in those they include interesting elements, choral parts and melodic choruses. Threshold are one of the bands which I listen to, when I want to energize myself.
The band has existed since early 90s and during this time they had 2 different singers. Unfortunately the second one, who played with the band until this summer, has quit now and for the tour he had to be replaced. Surprisingly it was the original singer, who has joined the band to sing at the scheduled gigs.
I have to say that overall this was not a good concert. It has shown that good band is simply not enough, if other aspects fail. The first problem was the concept of the evening. Threshold have recently signed a contract with a new recording company and as a consequence they are now touring with 3(!!!) supporting bands. This sounds like quite a nonsense, the promoters of the concert realized that probably as well and renamed the concert to "Progmetal festival". Fine, fine (adopt, adapt and improve...)... but 2 of these bands have nothing to do with progressive music, they are ordinary heavy metal bands, very loud and very boring.
As a result the whole show has started at 8pm, however Threshold have started to play at 11pm! And they have only played for a bit more than one hour. Who has conceived this idea... I really don't know.
Also the sound engineer did not do a good job, all the bands were terribly loud and melodies have disappeared in chaotic noise.
And last but not least: the audience. As mentioned above, there are not so many Threshold fans, but still I expected more people. WE were perhaps 70. Btw it was the same club where Marillion have played in May and there were maybe 250 at that concert.
The only positive thing about the whole night were Threshold themselves. Without any sign of disappointment from playing for so few people they have shown that live performance is their strength. Substitute singer Damian Wilson did not sing any of the songs from his old times, all the performed songs were from last 4 album which were recorded with the other vocalist, but he managed to sing them very well. Unfortunately often he could not be heard because of the awful sound.
Well, I visit quite a lot concerts this year and of course not all of them can be top class. Here I am a bit upset because the screwed up evening was not the band's fault, but I can only hope that next concerts which I plan to visit, will work better. And I also believe that in future I will have the chance to see Threshold at a better concert. For example something like this: