Kreator, Sepultura and Soilwork, 6th February 2017, Amager Bio, Copenhagen, Denmark

Kreator archive photo: Urban Mescalero Photography www.urbanmescalero.com

It might have been cold February Monday evening, but it felt like a holiday. How can it not, if you were set to spend it in company of Kreator, Sepultura and Soilwork? Three diverse bands with massive legacy and plenty to offer in a live setting.

Couple of weeks ago Kreator and Sepultura released new albums, so this was a chance to experience some of the new tunes live, shortly after hearing them for the first time. Amager Bio venue was sold out so, the stage was set for a memorable evening.

Soilwork hit the stage (or the small part of the stage they were given) to the notes of the self-titled opener from their latest album Ride Majestic, which is almost two years old now.

Over the years the band has parted ways with most of their members with only singer Björn Strid remaining the original member. Also, the past few years have seen the band change members, most notably Ola Flink and for course Dirk Verbeuren who left the band to join Megadeth last summer.

Still bend felt fairly generic with exception of Verbeuren’s replacements, Bastian Thusgaard of Danish metallers Dawn of Demise. He did his job well, but he didn’t feel as part of the band and his energy on stage doesn’t match that of Soilworks music. The rest of the band delivered energetic show with especially Strid constantly in contact with audience. His vocals were fine, but the clean vocals were not as smooth as they should have been and for the most part they were buried under the instrumentation. This took some of the energy out of them and made it harder for crowd to interact.

Strid did his best to keep them going and for the most part he succeeded, nonetheless taking into the consideration that they played as the second of four bands and let’s face it, majority of people came to see Sepultura and Kreator.

And speaking of which, Sepultura, in past ten years or so the band has been releasing one good album after another and the latest release Machine Messiah is no exception. It’s a diverse album that delivers on most levels and it’s a very good representation of Sepultura anno 2017.

Last night in Copenhagen the band had an hour to deliver a mixture of new songs as well as the classics and they balanced it nicely, with few too many new songs. When band with such a massive legacy only has an hour to play then it results in lots of good albums not making the cut.

It comes as no surprise that crowd responded best to the old songs, it’s one of those aspects of fan culture many bands have to deal with. New songs didn’t make the big impact live, with exception of “Resistant Parasites”, which felt like future live classic.
And speaking of classics, the band might be tired of playing some of those songs, but they deliver the songs with conviction and loads of energy.

The performance and quality of the songs resulted in massive impact on the crowd. Derrick Green has established himself as rock-solid frontman who rarely disappoints. Andreas Kisser sounded great throughout the entire concert and Paulo Jr.’s role in overall live sound of the band has become more essential since the band for almost two decades ago became one-guitar-band. And that leaves the drummer Eloy Casagrande, who joined the band in 2011. This 26-year-old is one of the most exciting drummers of the genre I’ve experienced since Chris Kontos. His skill and power are hard to comprehend. Due to the lack of space on the stage at Amager Bio, he was placed all the way in the left corner of the stage, but that didn’t stop him from basically stealing the show. I can’t remember ever being at the gig where a drummer has received so much attention. Not even close.

20 years after the departure of Max Cavalera, Sepultura are alive and well and this is their best lineup in 20 years.

While waiting for the main band to come on stage the crowd was entertained by a soundman who played classic from Iron Maiden, Metallica and Judas Priest. It’s fun to see the impact of those songs have on people, who were singing, headbanging and playing all sorts of air-instruments.

Kreator picked perfect couple of openers in form of “Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue for the Elite)” and “Phobia”. From the start the band sounded good with an exception of being too loud. This continued throughout the show and while being too loud and sounding good is an impressive achievement, it did partly spoil the experience immensely.

First two songs received an overwhelming response and much like I argued in the review of Gods of Violence, the new songs work better live then they do on the record.

Just like last time Kreator played this venue, they tried to fit too much on the stage. It’s as if they simply must include the stairs and the bridge above the drum kit, regardless how little place there is. Kreator is one of the biggest investments of their current record label, but they are not a big band so these aspects of their show somehow seem wacky and hard to take seriously.

What’s not hard to take seriously is these four Germans’ skill. Their playing and energy is undeniable and crowd responds to it massively. Somewhere halfway through the gig, the energy dwelled some, but they picked it up towards the end of the regular part of the show.

The encore started perfectly in form of “Violent Revolution” and as anticipated they closed the show with “Pleasure to Kill”.

Kreator are a mean lean machine, nonetheless live, which they proved yet again last night in Copenhagen. If they focused less on props, kept the faster grip of the crowd and turned the volume bit down, they could’ve delivered a gig as impressive as their previous gig on Danish soil.

KREATOR SETLIST:

01 -Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue for the Elite)
02 -Phobia
03 -Satan Is Real
04 – Gods of Violence
05 – People of the Lie
06 – Total Death
07 – Phantom Antichrist
08 – Fallen Brother
09 – Enemy of God
10 – From Flood into Fire
11 – World War Now
12 – Hail to the Hordes
13 – Extreme Aggression
14 – Civilization Collapse

———————————-
15 – Violent Revolution
16 – Flag of Hate
17 – Under the Guillotine
18 – Pleasure to Kill