It was a dark and funnily enough, not too cold night for autumn, so I’m certain people in the queue around the corner, with the rather strange police presence, weren’t hypothermic by the time they got to enter the venue and while I was told the body search wouldn’t be too invasive, “See? No rubber gloves” he quipped before fondling my buttocks then allowing me to pass through with the hordes filing into the already packed downstairs area, which made my coming across a friend within 30s of entry all the serendipitous.
While having a brief chinwag I was subjected to the awful sound of a way too loud saxophone as Shining played “Meat Hook” with Marty Friedman accompanying them on guitar. Now musically their sound wasn’t all that bad. The guitars were coming through rather well, it was just that sax that was screeching above everything and completely ruining it for me. They ended their set with a cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man”, which felt never-ending as the sax tried to scour my mind from my skull through my ears.
After a rather brief change-over, the lights dimmed and “Tempore Nihil Sanat (Prelude in F minor)” was played as a backdrop was illuminated with images for Arch Enemy to stroll on under. They opened proceedings with “War Eternal”, the title track of their latest release, allowing Alyssa White-Gluz to warm the crowd up with a song they wouldn’t need to use comparisons with before blasting straight into “Ravenous” where I found Alyssa’s vocals a little deeper and fuller than Angela Gossow’s, but others may disagree. What I can say about both however, is they are pure balls of energy and never stop moving while on stage. The already vocal crowd were all growling along as Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis slowed things down a touch but made the guitars sound twice as heavy for “My Apocalypse”. I guess with technological advancements making certain things smaller, cheaper and easier to do, there were pretty much constant backdrop visuals on display, and with the advent of lyric videos we got to have a type of karaoke with the band performing “You Will Know My Name” live for us as we sang along. Daniel Erlandsson’s footwork was clearly audible on “Bloodstained Cross” during both the high speed and mellower parts while Michael showed off his virtuosity on the lead solo. After running around for a moment or two waving a black Arch Enemy flag they broke into Sharlee D’Angelo’s bass rumble for “Under Black Flags We March” while the high vocal notes were accented by Michael’s guitar. Inviting us to sing along as another set of lyrics were displayed for “As the Pages Burn” I realised that Alyssa was singing them faster than I was able to read them off the screen as heads kept bobbing in front of my obscuring my view. “Dead Eyes See No Future” and “No Gods, No Masters” followed in quick succession before they steamrolled into “We Will Rise” which had the whole pit bouncing as one before the entire place erupted when “Nemesis” was played. Great show and highly entertaining, as you’d expect really.
What felt like an age, but was actually only half an hour or so, was ended by the 1969 Zager and Evans song “In the Year 2525” with a rather poignant video reflection which morphed into graphic depictions of war and violence as “The Patriarch” was played and the mighty Kreator took to the stage & spewed out their “Violent Revolution”. Heading to their most recent release we were told there was an imminent British “Civilization Collapse” by Mille Petrozza as images of riots in Greece assaulted us, only to be replaced by the ‘Phantom Antichrist’ cover for the far mellower “From Flood into Fire” as Sami Yli-Sirniö’s perpetual leads throughout the song had the crowd swaying gently back and forth. Man! did Mille & Jürgen “Ventor” Reil look young on the album cover shown as a backdrop for the very well received “Extreme Aggression” which had me screaming out the lyrics at the top of my lungs. Next up was one of my favourite tracks from ‘Outcast’ and again I was singing along for the whole of “Phobia” before Mille started espousing his reasons for being an “Enemy of God”. The very bass orientated “Voices of the Dead” had Christian Geisler nimbly plucking away as images of gone but not forgotten metal heroes looked over us. Trying to incite a riot of violence by requesting circle pits and getting everyone involved for “Endless Pain” before they blew the place apart with “Suicide Terrorist”. Sorry, couldn’t be helped. Taking a brief respite from the stage while “Mars Mantra” played before truly blasting us away with “Phantom Antichrist” as Ventor’s feet kicked up a storm while Sami’s lead swept along majestically. The disturbing video for “Impossible Brutality” was shown as they played the song flawlessly. Picking up the pace dramatically “Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue for the Elite)” really got the pit writhing in a frenzy of activity, while a wall of death was requested for “Pleasure to Kill” which destroyed the stamina of anyone left as they brought their set to a close.
Returning for the encore Christian got to shine when playing the bass heavy “The Number of the Beast”; while I thought Mille’s lead was too aggressive for the mellow song, while Sami seemed to get his spot on with great finesse. I particularly liked the Kreator take on the original Derek Riggs artwork. The steady gallop on both drums and guitars for “Warcurse” is quickly swept aside as it frantically stampedes its way to the end. Our first visit to ‘Coma of Souls’ is sadly the penultimate song of the night, bringing to mind how much good material they have to call from and “People of the Lie” is no exception as the flashing strobe lights confirm as they try keep up with Ventor’s kick drum. While we were given the expected finale of “Flag of Hate / Tormentor”, what we didn’t expect was the rendition of “Happy Birthday” being sung to Mille prior to it as all the other bands flooded the stage with cake & sparklers. Afterwards Mille was distributing chunks of cake to anyone that wanted any like a good host, but kept the final chunk for himself.
This was quite easily the best gig of the year for me and after more than 30 years, Kreator still fucking rock!
Marco Gaminara
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