Approaching the venue the queue seems to never end, most of the fans seem to have arrived early to make sure they have a prime spot for an entire evening of Leprous. Entering the venue the atmosphere is electric, many people talking about how they have seen Leprous many times previous. Tonight was marketed as something different, two sets of Leprous. Prog bands often make the decision between playing less of the long songs or more of the short songs. Tonight’s format allowed the band complete freedom in their choice and fans of every era would be deeply satisfied.
The band hit the stage for the first set masked in shadow created by the lighting. Opening with Silently Walking Alone the band are anything silent, they are running all over the stage and the fans feel far from alone. The band curate the energy of the room expertly with their first five songs of the night. Each played with such precision and power. Opening with a track from the most recent album followed by The Price from The Congregation shows that tonight will be a great mixture of songs. The band certainly know how to open a set.
Lead singer and keyboardist Einar Solberg jokes with the crowd about how he was once voted the third best keyboardist in the world but is not the third best in the band, I think most Leprous fans would disagree with him here. His joking attitude continues when he introduces the next song as having no structure, as with all Leprous songs it is in fact deeply crafted. They start to play Forced Entry from Bilateral. The band as always plays it expertly but unfortunately after they finish, they have to take a short break. This short break is not the one intended for tonight it is in fact due to technical issues. The band return to the stage with a round of hearty round of applause from the crowd. The crowd is understanding and the band then burst into the next half of the first set. Ending on Nighttime Surprise this is when most bands would be running out of songs. Yet Leprous have only lightly scratched the surface of their catalogue.
Set two starts after a short break allowing people a brief moment to digest the beauty of the first set. Set two opens with a track from the most recent album, Unfree My Soul. As with all songs played tonight it goes down well with the crowd. The highlight of this second set is when the band play Faceless. Opening with the bassist playing a tiny bass ukulele, it should be more humours but the beauty of the music almost mutes it. Towards the end of the song the band bring out a choir made of fans so they can recreate the track which featured fans from all over the world on the studio version. The biggest shock of the choir is that lead singer of Haken, Ross Jennings, is on stage without introduction and without being singled out. The fans obviously spot him as Haken and Leprous feature vast amounts of crossover appeal, both being on the proggier end of prog metal. The whole fan choir should get special praise as they absolutely smashed it out of the park. The second set ends on Slave which obviously leads the crowd not only wanting but needing more.
The encore is needed to bring tonight to a close but it may have worked better being played as part of the second set proper. Atonement works well to open the encore and leads well into the final track. It isn’t a full track but is the second half The Sky is Red. The second half of the track strong enough to be played alone. This shows why Leprous is special, they sound like no one else and give a sense of relief that very few bands can. Its heavy but nothing gets lost, its prog without being nonsense, its simply Leprous.
Words: Will Freeman
Cover Photo: Simon Arinze
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