anguyen92 wrote:All right, from what I've heard so far on Spotify regarding the live album, I think this is slightly a step up from Wembley. The band sounded a bit fresher, except not so much on Metalingus. Myles sounded slightly better than Wembley, but still not on the highs of Amsterdam. The crowd is slightly better than Wembley, but again not as high as Amsterdam, I feel. The only greatest flaw so far honestly is just that this is not a live DVD. Don't know why they didn't go with it, especially since they have up the production a bit with the visual screens and who knows if they want to use screens again. The only explanation is that they are saving the DVD treatment for the Royal Albert Hall shows, which would make sense, but it's going to overshadow this greatly on hype alone in the first place so they either might as well go DVD or not go with doing any release at all, I feel.
Highlights so far: Cry of Achilles, The Other Side, Watch Over You, Blackbird, and Open Your Eyes (man, 13 years of that song and it being played live is always golden and this version is no exception. Don't know why they don't just have it as the always show closer instead of Rise Today).
So I think, in fairness, after 5.5 years of not having any official live release of anything, this is good enough, and, other than them playing deeper cuts, I don't feel enough of a good hype to make the show better even with the fact that they are playing the largest arena in London. Hopefully, the Royal Albert Hall shows can smash all expectations in all front. For the O2 show, it's a typical AB show in the 2010s. The songs selection and performance are good, but far beyond stale, and they really do need somewhat of a change up in structure in some parts of the show, i.e. the beginning.
The last verse of Watch Over You i may have played a few times on repeat fantastic.I think i agree with your assessment overall,i was impressed with Cry of Achillies,Watch Over You,OpenYour Eyes,Writing On The Wall and Poison all sounded great live imo