Lacuna Coil, Shallow Life Tour - Manchester Academy, 31st Jan 2010

On January 31st 2010 Doozr and I headed to Manchester for my first official 'metal' gig; Lacuna Coil's Shallow Life Tour. Originally the show was scheduled to be at Manchester Academy 2 but was promoted to Academy 1 at the last minute. Admittedly, Shallow Life is their most commercial release to date but having only recently embraced the whole metal genre, this was to be a real treat for me.

We booked a hotel seeing as Manchester is over an hours drive from home and figured we could enjoy a few drinks at the venue and make an evening of it. I also had to acquire a new outfit - how could I possibly go to a metal gig in my usual gig clothes? (any excuse!) Taking advice from Doozr I decided to plump for a black and silver under bust corset from Corsets-UK with a black gypsy top, black skin tight jeans and the most amazing Pleaser boots. I also purchased a beautiful gothic style jacket from The Gothic Shop. I was to be all dressed up with somewhere seriously exciting to go.

Due to the venue change the doors opening time was also altered. This meant that we arrived much later into the support acts than we would have liked. We only managed to only catch the end of Dirty Little Rabbits. They were an 'interesting' band to say the least. Lead singer Stella Soleil clearly forgot to get dressed and appeared to be performing in her nightdress. Still, they had the desired effect on the audience and the place was full of excitement and anticipation. It was the most amazing experience to stand in the middle of the crowd and soak up that atmosphere.

As you may have previously read there were a couple of standout tracks for me from the Shallow Life album and seeing those tracks live was breathtaking. They opened with Survive and I could feel my heart pounding as the track started. To be honest my heart didn't stop pounding throughout the entire show. Standouts for me were Fragments of Faith, Tight Rope, Wide Awake, Enjoy the Silence and their final track Our Truth.

The band were energetic and note perfect, the visuals were impressive, the venue was well organised, the acoustics were amazingly good quality and the crowd were a joy to stand in. Often at gigs you find yourself being pushed about my morons, have people push past you to get to the bar or you get covered in somebody's stray beer that somehow managed to get thrown up into the air. Not at this gig. The crowd not only respected the artists on stage, but also each other. Most notably they remained in their place for the entire show, not a single person pushed past me to get anywhere; the show was just too good to walk away from.

The visual element of the show is apparently something new and never before used for a Lacuna Coil gig. It fitted perfectly into the background of the stage, with the performances from the group and with the tracks they were playing. Cristina Scabbia had at least 5 costume changes throughout the show. She is an amazingly beautiful woman and her presence on stage had me mesmerised.



The added bonus to the evening was at the merc stand where I purchased the Deluxe Tour Edition of Shallow Life which included a bonus disk and was hand signed by the entire band. The bonus disk includes live tracks, tracks recorded for radio and a couple of never before released tracks.  Doozr also scored a very stylish Lacuna Coil t-shirt.  It was a perfect way to end an amazing evening.