The second weekend of Avatar’s Impossible Concert Experience was almost as impressive as the first! I mean, you have to start off strong with brand new live content and then follow that up with a “best of” set. Naturally, like almost every sophomore effort, Age of Illusions, was somewhat disappointing. For me, anyways. I’m less familiar with their catalog than my sister, so she had a hell of a time!
Part way through the performance, Johannes explained that the albums they chose to play from this time spoke to the title, Age of Illusions, because they both explored unreal worlds. With that, the first album they played from was Feathers & Flesh, which chronicles the tale of an owl who goes to battle with an eagle who threatens to bring the day. I am much less familiar with this content, so the only real contenders for me were “New Land” and “The Eagle Has Landed.” With that being said, I may have discovered a new favorite in “Tooth, Beak & Claw,” which to me had a very “yacht rock” vibe to it. I went to go find the song later and saw someone describe it as “surf metal” and that is just about perfect.
After another very short intermission and a more robust costume change, the band came out to play songs from Avatar Country. Again, they fully committed to this set and I loved every second of it. Guitarist, Jonas, got to sit in his throne for a song, get wheeled to another set, and wear that crown for several songs! It was glorious. So was the song selection! Now, not everything got played from the record, but I did get to hear my personal favorites, “The King Welcomes You to Avatar Country” and “The King Wants You.” Sometimes there’s nothing greater than a cowbell in a song.
Peppered throughout the performance was obviously a lot of tongue wagging from Johannes, as well as some high kicks and just general face contortions. Poor guitarist Tim also got made front of for getting his hair cut during quarantine. Hey! It’s still long enough to whip into a circle while they’re rocking out. There were also two slower intros to each set, which Johannes seated at a piano playing a melodic tune before getting sucked into heavy riffs and screams. Something else unique to the set was him reading from a book that told the tale of the owl and the eagle. Quite clever!
I look forward to what’s yet to come, and although I can now probably guess what we’re going to hear next week, I still have no clue what the final performance will entail. Perhaps it will be the fan voted set list from start to finish? I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out!