On Saturday, Control Club from Bucharest hosted a very special event.
Coming all the way from Australia, five nonconformist and joyful lads decided to perform for us since, by what they heard, Romanians are open-minded and good music lovers.
Frankly I haven’t heard of them until recently and the concept of ‘ASTRAL SPACE CORE’ was completely foreign to me. But since the name of the band means “Truth”, I wanted to find out which is their truth.
We arrived quite early at the club. The place was empty and the band was setting up its gear. Since there was time to spare before the concert, I dared to tie a discussion with them.
I found them to be very warm hearted and full of humor, showing a lot of excitement for being in Romania. We chatted for a while, they talked about the tour, their debut album ‘To the Edge of Time’ as well as a little about themselves, the people behind the instruments, we talked about Romania and its people,and music in general.
Progressively the club began to fill and the members of Alithia got on stage, roughly at 10:30 PM. What followed is difficult to put in words, as for more than an hour they played with us, our minds and our souls and even if I was familiar with the album, the live version was something else.
They started off softly, with some mild keyboard and guitar tunes and the rhythm began escalating to the wrath of an apocalyptic tornado.
The band’s performing energy is something difficult to match with. I barely know a few others who can proudly claim they can literally bring the house down. If you would’ve watched them carefully (that of course, if you could’ve been able to keep up with them in the first place), they seemed as if to be in a trance while performing. The world is theirs in those moments, the universe speaks to them and they transpose its words in music. Forces of nature seemed to assault the venue when a drum was roaring or a guitar was flashing like lightning.
Didn’t sound neither like progressive, nor post-rock, nor metal. Seemed like a little bit of them all and even if there weren’t any guitar solos and the voice of John covers more special tones, it all sounds good.
The newest of the team, the exotic element of the band is Jeff. A charming and passionate percussionist, who attacks his instruments and makes them sound differently than expected. If it is to add also the fact that he has a good singing voice, we have a complete artist who, despite being so different from the rest of the band, fits into it perfectly once you listen to them as a whole.
Tibor on bass is in another world when he performs, a world in which he tries to lure us in too, and alongside the keyboards and the mad rhythm set by Danny, all grasp you as if in a vortex and spin you dizzy.
Their concert isn’t made of songs but of sounds, color and life. Their music is a spiritual state, emotion and empathy. They manage to unite souls and energize everyone.
If at the very beginning I stated that we were a few in the venue, glancing around again later, the place was packed and there were still people coming in. One after the other, curious of the luring sounds which were prancing around. People were carried away by their tunes.
Their music is a mixture of their personalities and passion. Their music is love and exploration. They speak to us about breaking through the limits, imagination, open minds and tell us that everything is possible once we truly want that certain something.
And to tell “the truth” until the very end, they got us hooked. They connected us, they made us dance and vibrate in unison. They gave us energy and helped us discover their emotions and desires.
They are not a mainstream band, but a rather psychedelic one, with songs essentially sentimental, with heartfelt messages. They are a communion of thoughts, beautiful and talented people, lovers of beauty.
They wanted to learn some words in Romanian and we gladly helped them out and we wished to make memories with them and so we received them.
It seems like they enjoyed performing for the Romanians. We curiously followed their stage performance, fed on energy, caught up their joy, smiled as they were smiling back and cheered since they fully deserved it.
They promised to come back soon. Probably then they will have a bigger stage to roam around on. We will wait to feast once more with their music, to nip some more of their joy and energy. It was like a breath of fresh air in a world far too polluted by the mainstream.
And if you weren’t there, have a little taste of what they can do by watching the interesting video of Thirteen Revelations, a futuristic starry hymn, as how they by themselves describe their music.
Setlist: Thirteen Revelations, Tribulations Rise, WTFJ, The Vail, Satelited, Here I Am, Sacrifice
BY: TEODORA SERDAN