EPICA, APOCALYPTICA, Wheel
Epica, Apocalyptica: coming together on tour.
On March 22, 2023, a special band duo will welcome us on stage at Barba Negra: the four Finnish cellists Apocalyptica, who are hugely popular in Hungary, and Epica, the Dutch symphonic metal band that has been delivering better and better albums and touring the world.
Schedule
The two headliners of the tour have brought a lot to the table in their decades-long careers, so it's no wonder that the past few years have been a bit of a retrospective. Apocalyptica made their name in 1996 with an album of all Metallica classics recorded exclusively with four cellos, as the title of the now undisputed classic album, Apocalyptica Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, suggests. The 20th anniversary of the release of this album was celebrated a few years ago with a special tour, which turned into a 170-stop tour of 40 countries and a live album.
The band then stuck to the original concept of releasing the forthcoming album as a non-singer-led release in January this year, the first time in 17 years that the album has been released with a fully instrumental soundtrack. The title of the Cell-0 disc refers to the English name of the cello, but its pronunciation also suggests the term cell zero. The Finns have not, of course, been cut off from the heavy metal scene beyond their borders and continue to collaborate with a number of singers and bands, including Amaranthe and Sabaton, who recently toured together and recorded a number of duets and a video. Last year they also released their own breathtaking video... Rise can be seen here: https://youtu.be/TMjWkDBLXxA .
Epica also spent 2019 in the spirit of anniversaries: their breakthrough album Design Your Universe was released 10 years ago, so they've reissued it in a Gold Edition reissue, complete with a second disc of acoustic versions. In addition, the band recently announced that work on the brand new album is well underway, so we can expect to hear some fresh tracks by the time of the autumn concert. A video for one of the acoustic versions of last year's songs has been released; you can listen to Martyr of the Free World here: https://youtu.be/nV5SCcrAxC0
The third band to join the tour is Wheel, a Finnish progressive metal band formed in 2015, and you can watch a clip of Vultures from their debut album Moving Backwards here: https://youtu.be/jwJsQCetgDU
