Guitarist and founding member Thomas Youngblood, speaking from his home in Tampa, Florida, is at a bit of a loss as to why it’s taken them so long to get here, but is ultimately stoked that it has finally happened.
“That’s a good question,” he responds, as to why they have never made it here in over two decades. “The band itself has grown over the years, even if we were around for 30 of 40 years, it takes time for a band to grow. I don’t really know; we’re basically open to tour everywhere, anywhere that there’s a good fan base we’ll be there. It has a lot to do with the promoters stepping up, but over the years there’s never been anything serious going on. With this new record there’s been a lot of new doors open, it’s been really strange. So we’re of course loving it, we love coming to new countries, anywhere and everywhere.
“But it’s awesome [that we’re finally coming],” he says. “Everybody’s excited. It almost didn’t happen, but after we put this Japanese tour together, the guys from Metropolis (Touring) stepped it up. Ticket sales have been great, so we’re real excited about it.”
Outside the shows, Thomas is keen to experience the true Australia, beyond what the media in America and around the world portray the country to be. Beyond the clichés and stereotypes. But especially the fans.
“I don’t really know,” he admits, regarding his expectations of our country. “There’s all the typical things that everybody knows about Australia, like koala bears and the Outback. I want to explore the ‘real’ Australia, the people, I really wanna meet a lot of the fans. I never really buy into a lot of the stereotypes too much. We’re also going to South Korea, and people are saying ‘don’t go to Korea, it’s crazy!’ It’s not such a great time to go there, but I don’t think there’s a perfect time to go there. We don’t want to be a part of this manufactured fear that’s going on over there.
“I have a very open mind, even though I’m American. I try to think that everyone is equal, and basically judge people by who they are, and not where they were born. I’m excited about checking out the culture there.”
Thomas promises the Aussie fans a very intense and interactive show, where the band and audience feed off each other’s energy, just as a great heavy music show should. And although they try to cover a fair amount of ground in their setlist as far as their back catalogue is concerned, 22 years and no less than ten full length albums makes it rather difficult to cover everything. But ultimately he is confident that everyone, band and crowd, will very much enjoy the show they put on.
“We’re at the point in a Kamelot show where there’s a lot of give and take between us and the crowd,” he tells us. “We really try to get close to the people, and make it a massive event/party. My goal is always that they can’t wait for us to come back, that’s what I want when they’re walking out. We try to bring an energy to the show without being cheesy, and maintaining the image that the band has. It’s a concert, and we want make sure people are having fun. At the end of the show, we just want to sit back with a beer and go, ‘Fuck, that was fun!’” he laughs.
“It’s basically impossible,” he says, when asked if they do songs from all of their albums during their set. “That’s over a hundred songs! Honestly, the first two records of Kamelot, even though I’m proud of them, it’s a whole different thing. We hadn’t really found our sound and image. But we play some songs from (their fifth album) Karma, we’ll play some songs from the Epica record, and of course we’ll play four or five songs from the new album.
“We try to find a mix where there’s fans who’ve been with us for a while want to hear certain songs, but we want to play new songs too. The new songs work really great live.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
