Take a bow
ANATHEMA
VENUE THE LONDON PALLADIUM, LONDON DATE 07/03/2020
SUPPORT RENDEZVOUS POINT
There’s a moment in Anathema’s set when Vincent Cavanagh recounts a recent phone call with his grandmother. The 90-year-old living “in the mountains” in Wales had learned that her grandsons (Vincent and older brother Daniel) would be headlining the London Palladium – that revered pinnacle of iconic entertainment in Britain since the dawn of the 20th century. She’d called to tell him how proud she was.
“I didn’t know she even knew we were in a band!” he says, laughing.
It’s easy to understand the special allure of the Palladium to the Cavanaghs’ matriarch.
In the 40s and 50s it played host to Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and countless other megastars of the day. In 1963 The Beatles, childhood heroes of Anathema, sealed their mainstream fame here.
Back then a Palladium gig was considered the pinnacle of a showbiz career, and while Anathema have performed for larger crowds than this, you do still get the sense that those historic standards ring true for them tonight.
First off, however, Norwegian progressive metallers Rendezvous Point set an elegantly dystopian tone with Digital Waste. A trancey, Muse-esque atmosphere dominates the first couple of tracks, and this is broken up by razor-sharp guitar chops and a couple of thoughtfully placed solos. Similarly to fellow contemporary prog metal types Haken, Leprous, VOLA et al, the emphasis here is on atmosphere and power without the technical showboating of the Dream Theater generation. Not that they forego all that, mind you. Ten-minute closer Mirrors is all rocking out, flawless solos and an ambitious mix of jagged and smooth textures. Singer Geirmund Hansen (who looks more like a rapper in his gold chains and sneakers) shouts “rock’n’roll baby!” and they finish in a flurry of good-natured thank yous.
Anathema are here ostensibly to mark the 10th anniversary of We’re Here Because We’re Here, the album that marked not only a return but a rebirth. Co-vocalist Lee Douglas became a full-time member. Steven Wilson mixed it. The band signed to leading progressive stable Kscope. The qualities of a modern-day Pink Floyd – as opposed to renegades of the early 90s doom scene – started to really shine through.
The bulk of tonight’s performance is filled by a complete run-through of this album; failsafe catnip for the loyal gathered here, for while it’s not Anathema’s absolute best record it’s certainly one of the best. That said, all bets are off as the opening progression of Thin Air stirs magically into life, pure Floydian emotion and then some. There’s virtually no chat, and yet they communicate so much: Vincent the laser-focused anchor, Daniel the emotional core and their childhood friend Lee, rounded off with Knifeworld’s multi-instrumental whizz Charlie Cawood on bass and Daniel Cardoso on drums (Jamie Cavanagh and John Douglas are both absent on this tour).
The thing is, as tonight reminds us, most bands put on some sort of front onstage. This isn’t a criticism by any means; plenty of rock’s most compelling faces have assumed some kind of character for their audience. Anathema, conversely, understand exactly how to put on a show, but do it entirely as themselves – with none of the airs or graces affected by almost every other band you’re likely to see playing venues like this.
And so we get the commanding, contorted projections that make you think ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon with an environmentalist twist’ (eg shots of burning planets and outer space, many of which are familiar from their Space Rocks set last year). We get the fiercely on point, impassioned arrangements, melodies and solos (Daniel enjoys some gorgeous Gilmour-esque moments as well as hard rocking blasts). But as the Cavanaghs share vocal harmonies in a rousing Universal – ‘You’re everywhere I go/In everything I do’ – the sense is of two fiercely close brothers (and products of a violent household) who’ve been through hell and are now reaching for something like heaven, with all the complicated implications that carries.
Yet it’s absolutely not a morose affair. Because crucially, through this music, comes the powerful sense of survival. And just as the pain in their performance is real, so too
