Photos From The Archives – Epica (2004)
The release of a new album by Epica is always something of a treat. Formed following the acrimonious split of one band and named after an album by another, Epica are a truly great live act whose releases always offer moments of sublime beauty and astonishing majesty. I’ve not heard it myself, but I’ve no doubt that ‘Requiem For The Indifferent’ (due out on 9th March through Nuclear Blast) will feature more of the same: great vocals, fearsome riffs and swathes of orchestration. It’ll also, like all its predecessors, be too damned long, but that’s probably my fault for having a limited attention span.
On 24th July 2004 Epica played at ‘The Thirteenth Day’ festival, the biggest nightmare in Birmingham since Spaghetti Junction opened. “This is actually our second gig in the UK,” Simone Simons told me a few days before the show. “The first time we played in Camden, in London; the audience was great. I didn’t know what to expect; I thought they might be a bit reserved, but they proved to be the opposite. I just hope there will be a lot of people at The Thirteenth Day so that we can have a great time together.” Promoting their ‘Consign To Oblivion’ album Epica hit the stage to their album intro ‘Hunab K’u’ and within seconds of kicking into their first song proper ‘Dance Of Fate’ they had the crowd eating out of their collective palms. “Make no mistake,” I wrote in Fireworks magazine, “this is one very talented band with riffs aplenty from Mark Jansen and Ad Sluijter, a rock-solid backline in bassist Yves Huts and drummer Jeroen Simons, a keyboard wizard in Coen Janssen and a stunning vocalist in Simone Simons, whose pictures on the new CD do her no justice. Highlight of the set was their last song – the full ten minutes of ‘Consign To Oblivion’ itself. Epic: there’s no other word for it. This band is going to go places, believe me.” And for once I got it right!
As for the photo, it’s not my best Epica shot, but shows a band on the up and having fun on stage. “We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and everyone seemed to like us,” laughed Simons later. Talk about understatement….
Words and photo © John Tucker February 2012