Goth metal aficionados gathered to see Lacuna Coil Live in Manila. This is for the Philippine leg of their Rising From The Dark tour that happened last December 9 at Samsung Hall, SM Aura Premier.
This “Naughty Christmas” treat was presented by PULP Live World, who is widely renowned for bringing the heaviest and loudest metal acts in the country.
Lacuna Coil has a total of nine LPs, three live EPs and video albums, and two compilations. Their Philippine tour had a total of twenty songs. The small venue was surrounded by a mixture of heavy, progressive, and melancholic songs that they have written for the past 28 years.
Six years after their last performance in PULP Summer Slam 2016; Cristina Scabbia, Andrea Ferro, Marco Coti Zelati, Diego Cavalotti, and Richard Meiz braved the audience. The event started by covering the venue with darkness, which led a sea of people wearing black to start raising their horns. The crowd goes wild as soon as their drummer Richard Meiz enters, followed by the rest of the band.
As soon as Cristina Scabbia faced the center stage, the crowd started going wild to “Blood, Tears, Dust.” It was followed by tracks from their record Black Anima called “Reckless” and “Layers of Time.”
While the venue might be more intimate than their first performance in PH, the crowd never failed to let the Italian metal band down. They hum along for songs “Layers of Time,” “Our Truth,” “Daylight Dancer,” “Apocalypse,” and “Sword of Anger.”
And then, “The Ghost Woman and Hunter” entered— haunting the venue until they “Killed The Lights.”
They say it’s “Now or Never,” but the right mix of Ferro and Scabbia was definitely spot on. Lacuna Coil unearthed their darkest staples such as “Heaven’s A Lie,” “My Demons,” and “Delirium.”
Of course, Lacuna Coil wouldn’t end the concert without playing “Comalies XX,” and “Veneficium.” Then as the gig reached its caveat, people screamed to the top of their lungs for the anthem “Enjoy The Silence.”
That didn’t end the show since the crowd hollered for an encore. This led to their most popular songs “Tight Rope XX,” and “Swamped. ”
After the Philippines, Lacuna Coil continued touring Asia– going to Indonesia, Singapore, and Japan. Come next year, they will be cruising around the USA.
Words by Aram Lascano
Photos by Aram Lascano and Nicky Aureo