OK, if you want to read about the music, skip this paragraph because this one is all about the transport system here in the UK. Quite frankly it sucks big time. The motorways are full of cones and town and city centres are rendered impossible to navigate by unfathomable one way systems. Leeds is no exception and my first trip to Leeds Rio’s was a total nightmare. It doesn’t help that the venue is in the middle of something called the Grand Arcade. Fortunately, once I had found a car park I was able to follow the stereotypes to the appointed place and join a very impressive queue.  

My spy on the rock & roll grapevine informed me that there had been some major issues surrounding the sound check but this was in no way apparent from Pagan’s Mind’s blistering set. The last time I saw the band was at the much lamented (by me at least) Bradford Rio’s with Power Quest. That night the Mind were co-headlining and had an hour to fill which meant that they had the urge to show off their skills with guitar, drum and keyboard solos. With only forty minutes tonight such extravagances had to go out the window and the band did what they do best; muscular, hard-hitting progressive metal. 

Pagan’s Mind have an excellent CD to promote in the shape of God’s Equation and tonight they took the opportunity to show the youthful looking Leeds crowd why it is such an essential purchase. The show opened with the title track and immediately the front couple of rows were nodding away. Vocalist Nils K Rue is a man at the top of his game at the moment and he’s also looking somewhat slimmer than the last time the band was over here. Swirling keyboards heralded the start of United Alliance which was dispatched with aplomb and if anything was even more powerful than on the CD. 

The cover of David Bowie’s Hallo Spaceboy was next and was an absolute joy and it felt like the ceiling was going to fall in during the opening section. The only nod to the Mind’s rather tasty back catalogue came in the shape of Through Osiris’ Eyes which a surprising number of the crowd were familiar with already. It was, for me, the highlight of the whole night. “A song about a crazy little fucker willing to die for the cause,” Alien Kamikaze rounded a quite superb six song set and left Sonata Arctica with a bit of a challenge to top that. 

To be fair, in many ways it wasn’t much of a challenge as the crowd were up for it as soon as the band appeared and kicked things off with In Black and White, one of the better tracks from the slightly disappointing Unia album. In order to give a rounded report I moved around the venue (more accurately because the sound seem poor from my original vantage point) and directly in front of the tiny stage things were great (if a little quiet) but at the side the sound was muffled to the point that it seemed that guitarist Elias Viljanen wasn’t actually plugged in. 

Sonata Arctica have some brilliant songs and it was good that they brought many of them out to play. Kingdom for a Heat and Don’t Say a Word were sublime for instance but the set sagged a little around the half hour mark with too may mid-paced songs bundled together. Somewhat incongruously then I have to report that it was a blinding version of Replica that got things back on track. Wolf and Raven was also superb and was one of the many tunes which demonstrated the importance of Henrik Klingenberg ‘s keyboard mastery both to the band’s sound and performance. 

Full Moon rounded off the main body of the set in fine style with the audience going absolutely bananas and singing the chorus with gusto. With that, the band exited before vocalist Tony Kakko returned for a bit of audience participation which bizarrely involved the crowd “singing” the British national anthem, one of the worst things I have ever heard! Kakko then divided the audience into three sections and gave them drum parts for an acapella version of We Will Rock You before the rest of the group came back to finish the highly enjoyable gig. 

Driving back along the M62 I suddenly realised that I could hear perfectly which is a first in nearly a quarter of a century of gigging – I’m not exactly sure what it means but it's certainly strange not to be at least slightly deafened  as I certainly was by Pagan’s Mind. I think the strength of tonight’s offering can be determined by what the bands didn't play however; for instance Pagan’s Mind didn’t play Aegean Shores and Sonata didn’t do Victoria’s Secret both personal faves of mine and isn’t leaving the audience wanting more a good sign?

Ian Sutherland