A dark foggy night descended upon Times Square in the heart of New York City, as Haken took the stage, for an evening with the masters of modern progressive metal. The streets outside the venue were bustling with people as Haken converged onto the world’s busiest intersection. The Palladium is a mid-sized theater usually with a general admission floor and stadium style seating in the back, but, for the intimate occasion, the floor was laid out with chairs along multiple levels of elevation to cover every angle in the room.
The venue was filled with the sounds of anticipation as people quietly found their seats. So quiet you could hear the whispering chatter of fans anxiously awaiting the start of the show. The lights went out before the scheduled 8pm start. To open the first set, Haken performed their newest album, Fauna, from start to finish.
The band hit the guitars heavily with Taurus to start the live concert. People who hadn’t found their way to their seat yet, rushed from the lobby as bodies were scrambling across the venue for the punchy single from Fauna. Nightingale was next, which was their first song with Peter Jones returning to the band on keyboard as the crowd settled in for the long night of music.
The third song from Fauna was the first single and surprisingly not played on their US tour in 2023 supporting the album. Therefore, it was a song that the crowd was really looking forward to as singer Ross Jennings showed off some diverse vocals. This displayed to the crowd a real taste of what was to come from the Haken front man as his voice and stage presence quickly became a highlight of watching the performance.
The seated crowd was really starting to itch for some head banging when drummer Ray Hearne displayed his incredible skills for Sempiternal Beings. The next couple of songs were some of Fauna‘s deeper cuts including the Jurassic Park theme song to really get the crowd fully engaged in the animal theme of the album.
The album climaxes for Elephants Never Forget, which puts the dual guitarists, Richard Henshall and Charlie Griffiths, to a crazy test of technical guitar mastery. Not to mention, Connor Green on bass with an incredible stand out moment to give the two guitarists a break mid song. The crowd at the Palladium was then left in awe as they closed off the Fauna album with what could end up being a rare performance of Eyes of Ebony. And just like that, the entire album was complete, only a few hours away from its one year anniversary of release!
Just as you thought the first set would be over, the band decided we haven’t had enough, and graced us with a stellar performance of the epic Crystallized which had the seated crowd on their feet as the venue cheered for a set that was worth the price of admission alone. Ross made sure to let the crowd know that they had only witnessed the first half as there was so much more music to come.
After what I would imagine to be a much needed fifteen minute break, the band came back out to the hard hitting Puzzle Box from Vector. Ross revealed to be wearing an “I Heart NY” t-shirt to show some love for the city. Kicking off a second set of music that would showcase the band’s entire career. The beautiful Affinity song Earthrise followed as the New York City crowd clapped along with smiles to match the mood of the song.
There was an eruption of cheers as Cockroach King started, which is possibly the most popular Haken song. The acapella section of the song would leave the crowd in awe, however, the jaw dropping was going to continue as the instrumental Nil By Mouth melted the crowd with the guitar riffage. Headbanging ensued along the edges of the floor where people decided to stand as small pockets of people slowly started to rock out to the music along the edges of the floor to not block the mostly seated crowd.
Another Haken classic, 1985, showed why this band can command a stage for nearly three hours. Ross grabbed light up sunglasses from a fan in the front row and bedazzled the venue. It is worth mentioning that the light show was really intense and perfectly matched for the entire show. The lighting always seemed to hit the mood of the song and was perfectly timed for constant changes. A true enhancement to the live performance.
It was only appropriate to have two Virus songs if they included two Vector songs, so they did the two songs that had not yet been played live from the album, The Strain and Canary Yellow. Between the songs, there was a keyboard and drum jam session to keep the crowd on their feet with surprises.
A career spanning set wouldn’t be complete without a song from Haken‘s first album, Aquarius. The band finished the second set with the final track from the album, Drowning in the Flood. If you weren’t amazed by this performance, you likely weren’t paying attention. Nearing three hours of perfect sound and mastership of their instruments, Haken said goodnight.
As typical, an encore ensued as the Palladium was completely on their feet cheering for Haken to play one more song. One more song was what we received, but it was a long one. The only album not represented up until this point, Visions, got its moment with the epic title track performed in full. The room sang along on their feet when Haken eventually called it a night and bowed, for real this time.
Special thanks to InsideOut PR team and to band management.
HAKEN are:
Ross Jennings
Richard Henshall
Charlie Griffiths
Pete Jones
Conner Green
Ray Hearne
HAKEN online:
www.hakenmusic.com
www.twitter.com/Haken_Official
http://www.facebook.com/HakenOfficial
https://www.instagram.com/haken_official/
