Date: 12th November 2007 Headline Bands: Sonata Arctica Support Bands: Ride The Sky Epica Venue: Electric Ballroom Comments: I arrived an hour early to find a huge queue already present. I was glad I brought hat and gloves as it was a long freezing cold wait for the doors to open. Then I was straight in to the T-shirt stand and then to stake my vantage point in the venue. The two support acts were Ride The Sky and Epica. Ride The Sky were quite good. Not so great at first but as they settled in they got better and better. Epica had excellent drums and guitars but the combination of lead lady's vocals and the growly backing vocals didn't mesh with the instruments for me. So that spoilt it a little. But some pretty cool moments at times though that made them worth seeing. Then at last Sonata Arctica were finally on. When I saw videos of them live I thought they weren't that good live. But all the atmosphere is missing then. However in the flesh it is far more enjoyable. After a long piano intro they came on and recited the first two songs of the Unia album, before switching to Victoria's Secret. A selection from all the albums were played, with favourites being Broken and Full Moon. However all of them were great. Tallulah was the token slow song. The best song was in the Encore - Don't Say A Word. At the beginning of the encore the lead singer also played with the audience, turning us into a virtual drum kit (3 sections, for bass, snare and cymbal). It mushroomed into a nice rendition of Queen's We Will Rock You. Cool! And there was a mini reprise of the audience drums at the end before bowing off. That was one fun evening. No bad music at all really. T-shirts were horrendously expensive but I got one anyway as Sonata Arctica are one of my favourite bands. It was their first visit to the UK and I hope not their last as they were awesome. It was all over way too quickly, but that was just because I was enjoying myself. My first gig in 2 years. It was great to be back, albeit half deaf in one ear afterwards.