Avatar: Age Of Dreams (live stream)
Avatar is life. Well, to this Devo girl anyway. Get in her car – Avatar is playing. Apart from that troubling time last year when her sister’s brand new Supergrass CD got stuck in the player and tweezers had to be deployed. Out running? Avatar blasting through her headphones. ‘Muuummm!!! what colour should I paint my unicorn??’ ‘Red, dear. Paint me, erm I mean it, red.’ So, this review, and the three that follow it because, friends, ‘Age Of Dreams’ is the first of four live streams across four consecutive Saturday nights, come from a place of great bias. But the thing is, honestly, HONESTLY this show will blow. Your. Mind. The set. The lights. The visuals. The graphics. The concept. All this is utterly bloody stunning. Avatar themselves? Mate, you are not going to be able to tear yourself away from the screen. This is a paid for stream, and it is worth every penny. You will not spend a better ten or so pounds.
So, on to the show – a play through of Avatar’s 2020 release ‘Hunter Gatherer’ and a selection of hits in all their glory. And it’s just off the scale. In full ‘Hunter Gatherer’ regalia the boys rock, riff, screech, sing, growl and howl their way through an incendiary set. It varies from full on metal mode with guitars slung low and legs straddled so wide the left one appears to be in a different postcode to the right, through to Johannes baring his operatic soul. Never one to shy away from a high note, the fully made up frontman belts out the forceful chorus of ‘Colossus’, and if that’s not enough to make your jaw hit the floor the bass line will finish the job.
Avatar belt out ‘Secret Door’ in front of a literal set of doors, by which time the show has become so charged that Devo can no longer form coherent sentences and headbangs around the kitchen. And this is only the third track!!! The onslaught continues. Fast. Loud. Unrelenting. Until Johannes takes to the piano to perform ‘Gun’, which, tonight, is better than the album version.
‘Hunter Gatherer’ comes to a close, then it’s time for the hits, boys and girls. Complete with full costumed regalia, pyro and bonkers backing images, it’s full throttle all the way, and includes ‘The Eagle Has Landed’, ‘Let It Burn’ and Smells Like A Freakshow’, ending on well, it could only be ‘Hail The Apocalypse’ couldn’t it?
Johannes is an absolute performer, and his band are tight as you like. Note perfect. How hard must this be – to put on a show of this standard without the audience in front of you? Because the boys give it everything. For Avatar to perform like this without the energy of the crowd to feed off is pretty incredible.
If you’re an Avatar fan and you missed this, fear not, there’s more to come. If you’re not, stream the next three shows. You’ll soon change your mind…
Review by Jo Wright