When we arrived at the Astoria Octopus Spaghetti, as Octavia Sperati had now officially been renamed, were already wailing away. After a brief pause for drinks and t-shirts we meandered down dark corridors and up crowded staircases hunting for the balcony. By the time we'd worked out that the bit we really wanted to get to was reserved for guests, and settled on something almost as good, the Norwegian girls were drawing to a close. There was no break in the noise, just a change. A thousand conversations concerned with only one subject. It was almost deafening in its own right. This wasn't a buzz of excitement it was a roar. A line from Returning to Gehenna played over and over in my head, "... you've all turned up. This atmosphere Is thicker than blood."

This was really it. The end of all those years of waiting, and hoping, the cynicism born of so many disappointments melted away in the white heat of the 24th Moment. It was the 24th Moment. I suddenly realised that was what I could hear and my heart stopped beating briefly before making up for the pause by going into over drive. We peered through the dry ice. Straining to see each of the musicians as they made there way on stage. Shroud began as I'd anticipated. There was no other way to open.

"Come home," Carl whispered, and I knew I was where I belonged -- where we all belonged. There was still no sign of the man himself, and I heard more than one comment about him forgetting to turn up. We've waited for so very long and for most of that time only our humour held us together. Now Carl was leaving his little cottage in the woods. His big leather rucksack filled with Special Brew and calamari sandwiches packed by Cthulhu herself was firmly strapped to his back, and he was making the journey towards the real world. Early 2005 was here at last. He arrived just in time for the singing to begin and took us Straight into the Light. Disturbingly he hadn't aged ... almost as if he'd spent the last decade in someone's freezer.

Straight to the Light was followed by Penetration. It was was harder and faster and bigger than I remembered. This was a Penetration that was going to take me roughly from behind whether I wanted it or not. "Listen!" Carl roared and I listened so hard I forgot to breathe for a while. There was just about time to catch my breath before Dawnrazor. It was slow and menacing and yet so familiar, it gave me the warm fuzzies and a grin that would have worried many a psychiatrist.

Then something changed. I became aware of the room once more. For a while, I'd been transfixed, focused, almost alone. Now I was part of something else. A tiny part of something enormous and ancient and powerful. Perhaps it was made up of us all, perhaps we had a guest, but there was a definite presence in the Astoria from that point on. Moonchild came next and the feeling weakened. I got my bearings once more and chuckled quietly to myself as a single feather floated down from the lighting rig. Probably nothing more than a lost pigeon, but the joke wasn't lost on me.

Then there was The Watchman. If we slept it was a light sleep by now. The temperature suddenly dropped and I thought "Xiberia?" to myself, but I was wrong. The biggest and best surprise of the evening came instead -- Wake World, followed as I always thought it should be by Requiem. It was perfect. The end was begun, the wound was closed, which way from here? Did we know the things to come? By now I had no doubt that they would be worth the wait. This was the evening before the New Gold Dawn, but now it was time for Xiberia. If Penetration had been a bludgeoning this was far more vicious. The wind was icy cold, blasting the flesh from our bones with countless razor sharp ice crystals. This was the Nephilim reborn, coming in from the cold, leaving Xiberia, still very much alive.

I had another quiet chuckle to myself as the next song started. Perhaps it was Carl's way of saying that it was time to leave unless we were going where he was taking the new Nephilim. One last chance to reminisce, to remember the old days. Some will be left by the wayside. They sleep. They cannot follow. This was the Last Exit for the Lost. My wife, who practices Arabic dance, poked me in the ribs at one point and informed me that you could "spin" to this one. I didn't really need to be told as I my body was fighting a loosing battle trying to hold me in, without the spinning. There were many moments during that song I wasn't seeing through my own eyes. It changed me.

Then it was all over. He was gone and all that was left was an empty stage and the sound of so very many people wanting more.

We got it. As if to underline the sentiment of Last Exit Carl had abandoned the black shirt of base matter and returned reborn in white. This was the Xodus. Time for the dead to carry the dead as the living entered the arena of light. This really was a rite of change. There was one quick glance over our shoulders to the smouldering beauty of Love Under Will before the moment I had been waiting for -- Mourning Sun in all its epic glory.

Now it was time to wake up once and for all. The evolution was complete, the day was here. We unfolded our wings and soared with the Carl. It was truly beautiful. Nothing could have followed that...and nothing did ... yet. We will rise again!