Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Salzburg / Rockhouse / Austria
Concert date: 02.10.2018
Attendance: 450
Even as the years make us richer inside and we slowly discover and explore all sorts of genre spheres of music, where all that matters is whether the music is good or not, something undeniable remains. Emotions, passions that breed belonging and, I dare say, loyalty too. The to-the-grave kind. Though the years when I’d shake with excitement as Primal Fear hit the road are long behind me, I somehow remain devoted to them and follow them regularly. When they also deliver an excellent new studio record, like the new album »Apocalypse«, the bond with the band only gets more intense.
And when Riot V join them on tour, the legitimate successors of the legendary New York band that was always famed for top-notch old-school heavy metal craftsmanship, and who also bring back memories of the time when the lineup under the classic Riot name, led by the late guitarist Mark Reale, stopped by Ljubljana’s K 4 at the end of January 2000, the nostalgia hits that much harder and irresistibly calls you to another night of gigging together.
Nope, we just couldn’t wait for Primal Fear and Riot V to hit Ljubljana’s CUK Kino Šiška, where the two bands play on Sunday, 21.10.2018. Since the Salzburg show was on the tour schedule almost three weeks earlier, Salzburg is still close to Ljubljana, and the local Rockhouse has always been a hugely warm, homey club for us, we quickly hit the road for Salzburg. And? We had a blast. No Stiegl in hand, but a no less wheaty Weihenstephanner stepped in worthily.
Shortly before 8:30 in the evening, French heavy metal revivalists Existance were already smashing it on stage, leaning exemplarily and noticeably on the NWOBHM legacy for inspiration. The band isn’t totally green. They’ve been around since 2008, with two studio albums in their pocket: »Steel Alive« (2014) and the current »Breaking the Rock« (2016). Proof that the quartet confidently cracks stones didn’t take long to arrive. The band’s main driving engine, guitarist and vocalist Julien Izard, leaves a confident impression. He’s got a catchy, fitting voice laid over riffing that’s fast and ruffled. Despite Julien being chained to the mic, the band is still agile on stage and cleverly made use of the small stage, borrowing some theatrical vocabulary from eighties bands (Iron Maiden). Julien is backed by second guitarist Antoine Poiret, with whom he shares the solos. The riffs are often decorated with third harmonies, which is no revolution. In short: Existance are no musical revolution, nor are they as godlessly unhinged as, say, Belgium’s Evil Invaders. Far from giving off the vibe of naughty boys. A solid opening half hour of pleasant hanging out with a confident, fired-up band that approaches everything with commitment, and so very convincingly, flew by.
There were quite a few fervent Riot fans on the scene that evening. Today the legacy of this legendary, cult American band lives on successfully as Riot V. The lineup features two contemporaries of Mark Reale, outstanding guitarist Mike Flyntz and rock-solid bassist Don Van Stavern, filled out by young and talented Nick Lee on guitar, who is Flyntz’s student, then the extremely experienced master of the double bass drum pedals Frank Gilchriest (ex-Virgin Steele), and the incredible screamer Todd Michael Hall. Just like at our past encounters with the band at the Metaldays and Bang Your Head!!! festivals, Riot V enchanted the crowd with outstanding tightness, relentless stage ferocity and all the octane voltage with which they shook Rockhouse this night. Watching Flyntz, you know this is a man who is a wizard of his trade when it comes to hands-on guitar dexterity. Only once did he slip a bit, when he stepped behind Hall’s mic stand to announce a song and didn’t make it back to his footswitcher in time, which resulted in him “sleeping through” the opening riff. Otherwise his performance remains a veritable fairytale of an approach to the classic school of heavy metal. The band of course presented the new studio album »Armor of Light«, which, like its predecessor »Unleash the Fire (2014)«, is an excellent achievement, but we were all waiting especially for the band’s unforgettable sweeties created in the eighties and seventies, and the nineties too. Alongside the obligatory Bloodstreets, one of the finest compositions in the band’s iron repertoire, and backed by the expected standard Johnny’s Back, the finish of the one-hour storm fell to the “holy trinity” of Warrior, Swords & Tequilla and of course the must-have Thundersteel. Right at the start, the classic Road Racin’ from »Narita« (1979) was a very pleasant surprise, a bit later they played another Thundersteel classic, Flight of the Warrior, the fourth of the night, and then totally caught us off guard by working in the fantastic Angel Eyes from the excellent but mildly overlooked »Inishmore« (1998). Take Me Back, a track kept from the predecessor »Unleash the Fire«, fits superbly into the classic legacy and works like a song written in the first half of the eighties, while Riot V’s virtuous position on the all-metal map was cemented by the new songs, principally the opening Victory, plus Angel’s Thunder Devil’s Reign and Caught In A Witche’s Eye. The band constantly changes its repertoire. At every gig it swaps in up to five songs, while of course keeping the classics from the iron repertoire.
Riot V are an exceptional band. The new live experience with them confirmed it. Besides, they’d only just arrived straight from a Japan tour to join the new European one with Primal Fear. They could have played two and a half hours, they’ve got that much rehearsed repertoire, and yet. To present themselves to at least a halfway decent number of people at European venues, they simply have to “hitch” themselves to a bigger name on the metal map. That’s how it goes. But this is a band that should be headlining tours in Europe.
Primal Fear is a crew of incredibly experienced and polished musicians. The band was founded in 1996 by two iconic figures of German metal, Mat Sinner and Ralf Scheppers, who in the new era too share all the boss duties in the band. At the time the band formed, power metal was on the rise. Scheppers, who was suddenly left without a job after three albums with Gamma Ray, first auditioned for the new singer of Judas Priest, and when he didn’t get the gig there, he and Sinner launched Primal Fear. The band’s self-titled debut, released in 1998, is considered one of the key albums that, alongside HammerFall’s debut, helped fuel the then-unexpected rise of power metal, i.e. its popularization. The cemented musical recipe started gaining new qualities in 2007 with »New Religion«. Primal Fear warmed up to orchestral arrangements, the keyboard arrangements intensified, and the compositions grew more dynamic. Wound-up power metal, drawing of course from the Judas Priest treasure chest, thus got refreshed, and by 2018 the band had lined up a string of quality albums, of which the very latest, the recently released »Apocalypse«, counts as one of the best Primal Fear albums since »Seven Seals«.
The band, officially a sextet, works as a quintet at live shows. The sixth member, Swede Magnuss Karlsson, who stays home because of a glut of work, is an integral part of arranging and composing all the new Primal Fear music. They’ve been using backing tracks for years now, since the days of simpler arranging, when the band could rebuild a song’s studio version on stage with auxiliary keyboards, are long gone.
What was hugely encouraging that night was that Rockhouse was packed. No, they weren’t Saxon. For those shows the club usually bursts at the seams. The organizer was even afraid at first that the show would have to be held in the bar, like where Rage and Ozzy’s famous guitarist Gus G with his Firewind had to play this January. Well, Primal Fear drew close to 500 people, which for the spoiled, seen-it-all Austrian gig crowd is highly praiseworthy. The always somewhat reserved Austrian audience really got involved with the band during the show. Ralf did have to goad them on a bit throughout, but that always effectively woke up the good-humored congregation. Scheppers remains outstanding, and so still one of the greatest vocal greats of the whole German power metal era. He gets help from a “thickened echo effect” from the mixing desk, and Ralf is no spring chicken anymore. But compared to the less confident performance two years ago in Vienna, he sang at a really high level. The rest of the crew is no less seasoned. Given the somewhat smaller stage, the guitar duo went into fewer shoulder-to-shoulder duels, but Beyrodt and Naumann once again justified all their soloing excellence while also stunning with incredible tightness. Especially when it came to either shared solos in mid eight passages, or simply harmonizing riffs in thirds. Bassist Mat Sinner has put on a few more kilos again; he remains of course a stately vocal support to Ralf, and their diametrically opposed voices keep sounding incredibly good in harmonies. None of this would be possible without Francesco Jovino on drums, finally a drummer who has actually “stuck” in the lineup and so filled the gap left behind by Randy Black.
Primal Fear served up a very balanced setlist. As expected, the new songs led the way, with the superb Eye of the Storm especially standing out, though they also surprised no little by working in some mildly forgotten points of their career, such as »Jaws Of Death«, a classic from Under Your Spell. Moments from the album »New Religion« are always warmly welcomed. Alongside the excellent Face the Emptiness, Primal Fear hugely surprised with an addition, tackling one of the most ambitiously conceived compositions of their career, the outstanding mini suite Fighting the Darkness. Played in full! The band got the crowd up right from the start with two absolute evergreens, Final Embrace and Chainbreaker. There were iron-repertoire songs like Nuclear Fire, and the closing Metal Is Forever. Primal Fear delivered the high point right at the end. With the excellent Running in the Dust they went back to the debut »Primal Fear« (1998). For fun and cheer at Primal Fear gigs, the ever-mischievous Tom Naumann always takes care, a man without whom Primal Fear simply wouldn’t be the real Primal Fear.
Great in every respect. If any of you made it through all of this, I sincerely hope these lines, as lovers of heavy sounds kicked out along the classic heavy metal track, bring you in the biggest possible droves to the Ljubljana show of Primal Fear and Riot V, announced for Sunday, 21.10.2018. It’s the must-attend metal communion of this autumn in Slovenia.
Setlist
RIOT V:
1. Victory
2. Flight Of The Warrior
3. Road Racin’
4. Johnny’s Back
5. Caught In A Witches Eye
6. Angel Eyes
7. Bloodstreets
8. Take Me Back
9. Angels Thunder, Devil’s Reign
10. Swords & Tequilla
11. Warrior
12. Thundersteel
PRIMAL FEAR:
1. Apocalypse (taped intro)
2. Final Embrace
3. Chainbreaker
4. Blood, Sweat & Fear
5. Face the Emptiness
6. Hounds of Justice
7. The Ritual
8. Under Your Spell
9. Nuclear Fire
10. Eye of the Storm
11. King of Madness
12. The End Is Near
13. When Death Comes Knocking
14. Metal Is Forever
—encore—
15. Fighting the Darkness
16. Running in the Dust
17. Born Again (taped outro)
Photo gallery
