Prog is an interesting genre and a prog live is wildly unpredictable at times but one of the few constants in the genre is that you can always expect brilliant musicianship and unique approaches to songs you may already know and love. Coheed and Cambria exemplify this perfectly as they bring their Father of Make Believe to Manchester with And So I Watch You From Afar as support.
And So I Watch You From Afar was first and they had a difficult job from the very start. Originally, Haken was set to support Coheed and Cambria’s UK tour but dropped off due to unforeseen circumstances and ASIWYFA stepped in. They are an instrumental mathcore band that quickly established themselves as brilliant musicians that make use of complex rhythms and time signatures.
The majority of the songs blended together and it would be difficult to find some of these tracks again without a setlist but the vibe of the show was lively and energetic and managed to win over even people who were resistant to instrumental prog. ASIWYFA are highly recommended for fans of Covet and Polyphia due to their use of clean almost indie style passages and would actually make a great contribution to a Life is Strange soundtrack. It would have been nice to see Haken again but we could have done much worse than this collection of nice Irish boys.
After a little break, Coheed and Cambria took to the stage and the audience was greeted with the high octane positivity of ‘Goodbye Sunshine’. It’s a great introduction to the tracks from the latest album Father of Make Believe. These tracks have an early 2000s Coheed feel that made the set feel a lot more balanced with the earlier material like ‘The Suffering’ and ‘Blood Red Summer’ even though it was a largely modern setlist. Frontman Claudio Sanchez stayed animated throughout the entire show, constantly bouncing and running around through tracks like ‘Shoulders’ and the hyper aggressive ‘Blind Side Sunny’. The man is incredibly underrated as a frontman and rarely gets the recognition he deserves as a brilliant hype man with impressive guitar skills to match as well as fantastic chemistry with lead guitarist Travis Stever who adds so much life and warmth to backing vocals along with bassist Zach Cooper.
Some big tracks were missing like ‘The Running Free’ and ‘Ten Speed of God’s Blood and Burial’ but we still had the youthful exuberance of ‘Favour House Atlantic’. Everyone tried their best to hit those high notes with minimal success, but still had the time of their lives trying. The bangers continued with the gigantic prog epic of ‘In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3’, a song that I’ve personally never had much affinity for on the album but wholly understand in a live context. It’s so grandiose and massive in scale without coming off overly melodramatic. This track even had a little Dream Theater moment as the band did a whole jam session together which was interesting to see seeing as Coheed have never given the impression that they have the chops at improv. We even had extended solos from Claudio’s tongue as he spent a significant, some may say excessive, amount of time licking the guitar.
My personal favourite segment of every Coheed and Cambria show I’ve attended is the acoustic segments. This tour featured an acoustic rendition of ‘Corner my Confidence’ which was interesting considering how much of an uptempo rocker it was on the record but the more downplayed version was a welcome change and the fact that we all got to see Claudio’s glorious mane of hair in little pig tails certainly didn’t hurt.
The show ended with Claudio bringing out his iconic double-necked guitar as the band closed out with the epic finale of ‘Welcome Home’. This is a track that features all the same grandiose pomp and circumstance of the prog anthems of old from the likes of Rush, it’s a truly timeless song that will live on through the legions of kids discovering rock music in the same way we did when we were younger. As the final strings played and the audience started to make their way to the exit, we had time to reflect on what could be the best prog show of the season.
Coheed and Cambria may not have that household name appeal, if such a thing is even possible for a prog band, but they’ve cultivated such a dedicated and caring audience that recognise the band they love may be a little bit over the top and ridiculous at times. To put it simply, Coheed fans are the exact opposite of Tool fans, a laid back bunch of people who just want to enjoy their favourite band in a safe environment without feeling the need to attack you for “not getting it”. Hopefully, that’s enough of a recommendation to get you down to the next show.
Did you see Coheed and Cambria on this tour? Sound off in the comments!
Editor’s note: For those of us at the London show at Brixton Academy, it was great to see Coheed at Brixton once again – it feels like ‘coming home’. We were also treated to a giant physical Blindside Sunny on the stage, which looked truly epic! I’m not sure if they managed to fit him in any of the other venues, but it was a great taste of what Coheed could look like on a bigger stage, and come on, that would be amazing! They have so much story behind their songs to make it a truly epic visual set. We really hope they get to bigger stages in future years!
