Photographs by Neil Van.
What is a good song? As subjective as this question is, we might be able to agree on couple of elements that most, if not all, “good” songs share with each other. One of those elements is successful rearrangement. What that means, basically, is to recreate a song with different orchestration than the original orchestration. Take a piece for solo piano as an example. An arranger can reshape and recreate the piece by, in this case, writing lines for more instruments than a piano. It’s a very common practice in the world of Classical music. Though not as much as Classical music, there has been successful experiences in the more commercial/mainstream genres and styles of music. I’ve always thought of MTV Unplugged performances as some of the more successful examples.
In the world of Rock and Metal, the fascination of countless number of Rock and Metal musicians by Classical music has revealed itself in different events. The one that brought the combination to the attention of the Rock and Metal audience the most thought, is Metallica’s S&M concert in which Metallica performed the best of their catalog, accompanied by San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, with all the music rearranged and conducted by the late great Michael Kamen. S&M happened in 1999, and I would argue that it was as a direct result of S&M that Apocalyptica, the Finish band of classically trained cellists playing Rock and Metal music, got the attention they so deserved. Formed in 1993 in Helsinki, it was after Metallica’s S&M that Apocalyptica began to raise the attention and interest of Metal fans in general, and Metallica fans in specific, by their cover versions of some of Metallica’s most memorable songs. As the years passed, so did their catalog grew, and so did their fans.
Apocalyptica were back in Toronto with a full band to play yet another heavy set, structured by the mixture of instrumental and non-instrumental, as well as cover and original, songs at Phoenix Concert Theatre. Highly satisfied with the light show and the decent sound, the packed venue cheered, screamed, and applauded Apocalyptica as they went through everything you would expect to hear from Apocalyptica, from Metallica’s “Fight Fire with Fire” and “Seek & Destroy”, to Sepultura’s “Inquisition Symphony”, which created a balanced among the original songs, which constructed the majority of the night’s set list. Apocalyptica finished by “Inquisition Symphony”, just to come back on the stage for three encores, starting with Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”, followed by an original, “I Don’t Care”, and their always-epic finale, “Hall of the Mountain King”.
Even though Apocalyptica will always be associated with playing Metallica cover songs first, the evolution of the band’s identity in the way to success has been indeed an admiring one. Definitely worth to be experienced firsthand.
