Author: Rok Klemše
Photos: Nina Grad
Location: Kino Šiška, Ljubljana
Concert date: 24.01.2014
Attendance: 600
Even the blind and the deaf can see that nature and the weather are changing, and we’d almost started to believe we wouldn’t even see snow in Ljubljana this winter. Well, we were wrong, because we got a good dose of frost and snow on the very last weekend of January. And this time, both were welcome, because they brought frozen earth along with them. American frozen earth. Iced Earth! Even though the Florida crew has been a pretty regular guest on our stages in recent years – they first played here in 2008 at Metalcamp (and put that recording on the live album/DVD Festivals of the Wicked!), in 2009 they came to Ljubljana with Saxon, and last year they showed off the excellent Dystopia at the first MetalDays – they’d never headlined a club show here. This time, on a plague-ridden tour presenting their freshly released album Plagues of Babylon, we welcomed them with open arms and ears at Kino Šiška, together with Australians Elm Street and American thrash bringers of war Warbringer.
At eight o’clock sharp, the heavy metallers from Elm Street rolled in from »down under«, going from 50 degrees Celsius to zero. The Australian four-piece got barely half an hour, but they made good use of their time. They didn’t exactly burn themselves into our long-term memory, but we didn’t run off to the bar either. In the heavy metal this band plays, it’s easy to find strong parallels with veterans like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and at times Elm Street add rougher, more aggressive thrash metal moments on top of that foundation. That’s mostly thanks to Ben’s raw-sounding vocals, which are also the band’s biggest flaw, since they quickly get monotonous and boring. Still, the young Aussies’ raging, youthful energy was contagious, and the guys deservedly got a good response from a crowd that was just starting to warm up.
Things got even hotter after that, and this time the opening act was finally more than worth catching. Iced Earth are touring with, as Stu Block put it, those crazy kids from Warbringer. The Los Angeles thrash metal outfit already has four studio albums behind them and countless tours, and they’re no strangers to our stages, having played here several times. Still, it was great to finally see arguably the best modern thrash metal band in the big hall here too. As always, Warbringer used the opportunity for total thrash metal war, carpet-bombing Šiška with napalm-sharp, finely carved riffs and John Kevill’s jackal-howling, depravedly brutal vocals. Although Kevill was the only original member on this tour (guitarist John Laux stayed home), you couldn’t tell at all, and they stormed the stage with force and zero compromise. Laux was convincingly replaced on guitar by the lively, energetic Balmore Lemus (Exmortus), who really shone, and the rhythm section kicked ass too, ruled by drummer Blake Anderson (who also drums for another of the best new thrash bands, Vektor!), who threw some devastating blast beats in among the cannon salvos. The songs from the latest record IV: Empires Collapse (Iron City, Towers of the Serpent, Scars Remain) sounded brilliant live, with their longer instrumental passages and dazzling melodic guitar duels. But Kevill won it again, with the charisma of a psychotic serial killer on stage. Total War!
By a few minutes past ten, the hall at Kino Šiška was packed and the tension in the air before the American veterans took the stage was at its peak. Iced Earth welcomed us by unleashing the plague of the Babylonian whore over Šiška and greeted Ljubljana with the title track of the new record, Plagues of Babylon. The American band, led with an iron fist by boss Jon Schaffer, came back from the dead in 2011 after a decade of groping around in the studio darkness, with the spectacularly good Dystopia and a new name on vocals. Schaffer got help from the extraordinary Canadian vocalist Stu Block (ex-Into Eternity), who breathed new life into the band. That Dystopia wasn’t just a lucky hit is proven by the new album, which doesn’t quite reach its predecessor but shows that Iced Earth are far from done. The band played almost half the album live, and a few of the songs really have the potential to become permanent fixtures in the set in the future (Plagues of Babylon, Democide, If I Could See You in Cthulhu). The Babylonian plagues have a strongly dark, apocalyptic and epic feel that works well live. The choruses are typically Iced Earth-pompous, and it’s easy to join in on Stu’s fantastic vocal performance, which simply dazzles live. Luckily, the band’s outfits have joined the darker look of the new album: having ditched the light jeans and boots, they no longer look like hicks, and a darker image suits them better. While the lion’s share of the setlist went to the new album (they could easily have cut one or two songs and made room for an older classic), the band also served up some real sweets. Fists went up and vocal cords suffered during unforgettable renditions of the everlasting Blessed Are You, Vengeance Is Mine, My Own Savior, and the beautiful, hauntingly melancholic ballad A Question of Heaven, with which Iced Earth, surprisingly, closed the main part of the show. Also worth mentioning is the crushing anthem from Dystopia, V, steeped in a revolutionary spirit, during which Stu, as usual, waves the mask of the famous British hero Guy Fawkes through the air (also the antihero of Alan Moore’s excellent comic V For Vendetta and the film of the same name by the Wachowski brothers and, as of recently, sister), as well as the long-unheard Red Baron/Blue Max (even though they could have picked something better from The Glorious Burden).
That covers the song selection, but what about the band’s performance itself? Well, Iced Earth’s years of experience show (or rather, Schaffer’s, as the only constant member), and live the band runs like a well-oiled machine. Now, thanks to Stu Block’s youthful energy, even more so. Block is the brightest spot of every show, which gets clearer and clearer. His vocal performance is simply brilliant, working more than excellently both in the Ripper and the Barlow roles (at moments maybe even a bit too much), and it was interesting to hear that Block doesn’t let up and stays flawless even on songs from their era. There simply aren’t enough words to overpraise his vocal contribution to the band. Bassist and new recruit Luke Appleton complements Block very well, reliably and confidently in all the right places, providing plenty of stage energy with constant headbanging and posing, while the Schaffer/Steele guitar duo saws through riffs like a circular saw. Steele also takes care of the tastefully executed solos. Perhaps the most attention this time went to the drum riser, where sat probably the biggest drumming name the band has had so far. The band recently picked up Jon Dette (a man who has played in the likes of Anthrax, Testament, Slayer, Heathen and many others over his career), and true to his name, the pounding of those innocent drum skins was like D-Day. It would really be fitting for Dette to become a permanent member (though he’s evidently still missing the beard for that, hehe).
Iced Earth wrapped up their set too quickly with the immortal ballad Watching Over Me, cheating us out of the Iced Earth anthem, and there was also neither hide nor hair of a song the fans were supposedly able to pick. But even if they have the ugliest merch around (they probably sell tons of it in Germany), Iced Earth remain a live machine that slaughters everything in front of it, and after so many years of existence it looks like they’re finally getting to the spot they deserve.
Setlist
ICED EARTH:
1. Plagues of Babylon
2. Democide
3. Dark Saga
4. V
5. If I Could See You
6. Disciples of the Lie
7. Among the Living Dead
8. Red Baron/Blue Max
9. Blessed Are You
10. Vengeance Is Mine
11. Cthulhu
12. My Own Savior
13. The End?
14. A Question of Heaven
— encore —
15. Dystopia
16. Watching Over Me
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