Live Review: Orange Goblin with Conan at The Dome, Tufnell Park, London (12/10/24)

It’s all about the riff, all about the groove, and all about heavy rock and metal tonight in London as the beloved pairing of Conan and Orange Goblin come steamrolling through the city.

The last date of the Science, Not Fiction UK tour, London, is sold out and The Dome in Tufnell Park feels it. The majority of folks inside are in a bright mood though. After all, what is there to be miserable about when you’ve got two band like this to enjoy? Even though Conan’s sludgy and doom-infused sound isn’t exactly an injection of energy.

Regardless, it doesn’t stop a packed room full of people having the best head-banging time to their noise, and Conan are on incredible form here. The Dome rarely disappoints when it comes to sound, but someone found an extra notch of volume just for Conan and turned it up. Yet, as loud and as heavy as it is inside, the sonic layers of their music aren’t lost and they perform with the kind of nuance you’d expect from a band nearing twenty years of existence.

Conan are a great band on record, but Conan live? That’s where it is at. As exciting as the prospect of seeing Orange Goblin is, there’s a palpable disappointment when the heaviness of Conan dissipates, and they leave the stage to resounding shouts and screams of admiration and love. They came, they hit us all with some heavy doom sounds, and kicked some serious ass.

Which does leave Orange Goblin with the challenge of having to follow that, but when you’ve been doing this for nearly 30 years, no challenge is too much. Orange Goblin rise up to meet the demand with the same kind of vigour and vitality they had back in the early days. We’re all that little bit older, that little bit greyer (or balder), and that little bit stiffer, but you’d never know it by the way in which Orange Goblin play on stage and the way in which a very game crowd gives them a ton of energy back.

This is the Science, Not Fiction tour, and the new album does get a fair airing here tonight with a handful of tracks (Cemetary Rats, The Fury of a Patient Man, (Not) Rocket Science to name a few). It’s a chunky and thunderous blast of stoner-infused hard rock and metal, the kind to warm the soul (read our full review here). Yet, this is also a celebration of Orange Goblin and their 30-year career, so we get a deep-dive into the Orange Goblin back catalogue.

Of course, this is a band with ten studio albums and countless other releases, so there’s only so much they play in the time they have. Yet, they do a phenomenal job of taking us on a nostalgic journey with music from albums like The Big Black (Scorpionica), Coup de Grace (Whiskey Leech), Back from the Abyss (Heavy Lies the Crown), and even Frequencies from Planet Ten, their debut album (Saruman’s Wish). This is just a handful of tracks that we got to experience, and Orange Goblin delivered each with grace and mighty rock aplomb (even a glaring mistake is all part of the fun).

If you’ve seen this band live, either of these bands live, then you can attest to the quality of a show like this. Both on form, both with immense back catalogues, and both connecting with a crowd in ways that other bands can only dream of.