Last Friday, on December 20, I answered Frig’s invite to join them (and their guests, Irfan and Mindcage Escape) to their gig in Quantic Club, where they presented their latest EP genOm, a preview to their upcoming full-length release. My only concerned was about the line-up being too eclectic in terms of music genre, ranging from Progressive to Avant-Garde and ending with World Fusion. Turned up it was not a bad idea at all, the evening proving to be a quite pleasant experience.
The concert started just at the announced hour (something that I personally appreciate a lot) with Mindcage Escape, a lesser known name in Romanian Underground scene. The band went through a 2 years break and a change in line-up, but they’re ready with a new material and a burst of energy on stage. What I admired most about this band’s performance, which otherwise is not exactly my piece of cake, is their catchy riffs and their liveliness. The lead singer even used a megaphone at the beginning of the show, so it’s clear they wanted to be loud and bold! My favorite part after only one live listening is Malmaison, a song named after one of the prisons in Pitesti experiment. The setlist was: Mindcage // Medusa // Granular // The Haze // Malmaison // Black Ink.
A lot of things seemed to be happening on stage, between the acts, as Frig were setting up their wide instruments on stage – but not only these, they even brought a telescope with them. Frig, the band’s name, translates as “cold”, but nothing in their music evoke cold, maybe the listeners’ minds wander to the playfulness of falling snowflakes. Frig is a band I’ve been following for some time and, despite they had changes in their line-up as well, they work together as a whole on stage with no hesitations. It’s very hard to describe their music, it’s Avant-Garde, but for such a young band it sounds very put together, not like someone’s experimenting just for the sake of it. From my knowledge is just their second live appearance, another reason why I’ve been surprised with how good they sound. While the public admired the projections (made by Andrei Ionut ‘Dhope’, as we found at the end), the soundscape tookus through a stellar journey. The band had no interaction with the audience except for an emotional moment in the end when they thanked everyone involved. Setlist: Pillars of Creations // Arise of Ganymede // Gaian // Australe // Sfere // Aconcagua.
Irfan, the band that closed the evening, needs no further introduction since they’ve performed in Romania several times and they’re very loved and appreciated by the public here. The first song was Rusa, from their album Roots (now that I look through my notes, they chose this song as an ending to their performance in 2017). Their playlist was well balanced, including well-known song such as Return of Outremer or Buruna. If I was to compare with their latest live appearance in Quantic, it was less communication with the public, Kalin Yordanov chose to talk less about the meaning behind each song. For me, that kinda lost the atmosphere of listening to a tale, but I was more able to be captured by the music and the emotions and to go with the flow. Perhaps sometimes it’s the time to live more and to speak less.
Thus ended a night of good music and started a night of good times with friends. I’ll end with a short call to action, I’d like to see more of you attending gigs with Romanian bands, some of them are well worthy of a higher audience and there’s no room to growth if there’s no support. So, see you there, more of you, I hope!
Full photo gallery by Gheorghe Paraschiv, on our facebook page, here.