I've heard recently that this band is coming to my town in summer, so I wanted to get to know them a bit better before that happens. Anyone who likes them here? Any suggestions which album should I get first? Can you tell me something interesting about them?

I can't imagine we didn't have a thread about them yet... oh well

As for the album to start with: CULT! CULT! CULT! CULT! CULT! CULT! CULT! Cult it is, in case you didn't realise it yet. It's the last album before they started to use the drums, sadly. But with the drums, they make good songs too. Songs like Life Burns!, Faraway, Farewell, Quutamo, Helden (with Till Lindemann, Rammstein's singer), I Don't Care, S.O.S. (I like that song, so what?). Anyway, that should get you started

Thanks

They didn't use drums? Sorry, I don't know a lot about them, but anyway, that's kinda weird. I haven't heard of any band in any music genre that doesn't use drums, in combination with any other instrument.

Well they did use percussion back then, but if they did it was more in the classical way, like cymbals, timpani...

They didn't even use percussion of any kind before the Cult album. Both "Plays Metallica by four cellos" and "inquisition symphony" were without any form of drums or percussion. Live these days they will play almost all songs with drums. In the past they'd only do a few songs with and a few songs without drums, I preferred the live shows like that.... but alas, the drums are and will most likely stay very present.

My personal favourite: CULT Brilliant album. I also like the older albums and the Reflections album. After that, it started to go downhill for me personally. It's still good, but too many drums and too many guest vocalists (some cooperations I like, but definitely not all).

Live they mostly play newer songs from the latest 3 albums, and a few Metallica (and other) covers. They rarely play any Cult songs anymore (except Hall Of The Mountain King, yes the cover of Grieg's classical piece). In case they play at a festival, there will be more covers and less own work.

Fun fact: if you'd like to meet the band, just hang around at the venue / tour bus after the concert, there usually is a big chance to talk to the guys and ask for autographs and/or pictures.

I've seen them live 10 times now (first time was in 2003) and I used to spent a lot of time on the official Apocalyptica-forum around that time (not anymore these days).

In general I like Apocalyptica but I won´t go to a concert. We played "Nothing else matters" on my uncles funeral (he died in the age of 52 and was a rock/metal fan too) so I just can´t hear that song anymore. I fear it would be played on concerts because it´s very popular...

Nothing Else Matters is not a song that's standard in their set list. They usually play a ballad, but it varies which song this is. However I would say there probably is a 50% chance they play it...

The song "Romance" is usually in their setlist! I didn't see them live at all, but the DVDs that I saw the song was there!!

Ummm.... no it isn't... Romance is rarely played live recently. It used to be in the setlist, but they rarely play songs from the Cult album live anymore... and it's been like that for years.

Check here if you want to look up recent setlists and if you want to see which songs are frequently played live: http://www.setlist.fm/stats/apocalyptica-6bd63aa2.html

Romance only 5?? I thought it was more