Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Boogaloo / Zagreb / Croatia
Concert date: 07.04.2009
Attendance: 1000
Ticket price: 170,00HRK / 190,00HRK
The concrete forecourt in front of Zagreb’s Boogaloo club can be a pretty fascinating and surprising place about an hour before a gig. Guitar picks from the HammerFall guitarists rain down from the sky (or rather from the backstage window above) onto unsuspecting fans, and amid the countless roadies, tour managers and promoters rushing around on their own errands, even the Bloodbound frontman might walk up and start chatting with you about totally everyday stuff. After an extensive interview with Pontus Norgren (HammerFall), Aleš and I slid into a relaxed conversation with Urban breed (the surname deliberately starts with a lowercase letter), who is probably better known as the former vocalist of Tad Morose than for Bloodbound, and learned plenty of interesting details about the life of a touring musician (see the interview). After the obligatory photo session, Urban shot practically straight from the table where we’d been sitting onto the stage, and the spectacle in a solidly packed Boogaloo began.
| BLOODBOUND: |
Bloodbound are a relatively young but already fairly established Swedish band, and their biggest trump card is that very Urban. The charismatic singer showed no sign of the damaged vocal cords he’d complained about during our chat, and you could even say his commanding performance vocally overshadowed both frontmen who took the stage after him that night.
Credit goes above all to the fact that, unlike e.g. Joachim Cans, Urban didn’t “hold back” and served up high registers more than once — something many metal vocalists, especially the older ones, often prefer to dodge in order to “spare” their throats during live shows. The rest of the band, mostly seasoned musicians and old hands of the world’s stages (you can read more about that in the Rockline report from Maribor), didn’t lag behind either, and even though they played only half an hour, they delighted the power metal-hungry crowd in front of the stage. Much like the day before in the capital of Slovenian Styria, the band presented five songs from their three albums Nosferatu, Book of the dead and Tabula rasa, then had to quickly clear the stage amid loud cheers for the eagerly awaited Sabaton.
| SABATON: |
The Sabaton phenomenon is hard to explain in a few lines. With a well-honed musical philosophy and smart marketing, the band has won an enviable crowd of fanatical followers all over the world in just under ten years, and the effect of that calculated strategy was felt loud and clear in Zagreb. The euphoria they set off the moment they hit the stage is comparable to what only the biggest mainstream stars get, and it’s rare to witness it, at least in that form, at gigs like this. Frontman Joakim Broden noticed it too, and had to break his usual routine of a clowning monologue and showing off his crotch (which he happily did in Maribor as well) mid-set to sincerely thank the crowd and the Zagreb Sabaton fan club.
The enthusiasm peaked during the heroic Attero dominatus, which had us reliving the battle for Berlin, Primo victoria, which revived the Normandy landings, and Metal machine, which, despite its telling title, unlike the band’s other songs isn’t about historical military clashes. The sound was top-notch, and the guitars of Sunden and Montelius were as sharp as the bayonets on the rifles of the World War I battlefields that Cliffs of Gallipoli and Price of a mile took us to. The lineup, which you could call a sort of Swedish answer to Manowar, reaped thunderous applause after a good three quarters of an hour and set off a wave of ovations that might make HammerFall rightly wonder whether it wouldn’t be better to hand the headliner spot to Sabaton in future. But that wasn’t the only problem the stars of the night had to deal with.
| HAMMERFALL: |
The biggest and probably most awkward technical mishap that can befall a singer on stage is having the mic die, after a pompous intro of laser effects and other audiovisual trickery, at the exact moment he strides heroically out from behind the curtain for the opening song. That’s precisely what happened to Joachim Cans at the start of HammerFall’s set, so after the first song, Punish and enslave, during which the hapless Cans ran helplessly around the stage glancing anxiously toward the mixing desk, the masters of northern metal had to pause the show for a few minutes. Sabaton fans made the most of it, trying to summon their darlings back to the stage once more, but once the problems were fixed, Dronjak and co. successfully hushed them with the mighty Crimson thunder. Then came the excellent Legion, Blood bound, Renegade and the monumental Hallowed be thy name, whose after-effects, as Cans explained, concertgoers usually feel the next day — it’s called “slayer neck”. With no fear of the so-called lumbago, the long-haired crowd began mercilessly spinning and shaking their heads, while a water curtain poured from the ceiling in front of the drums, onto which a laser beam from the back painted various band-related motifs. A really inventive and effective visual touch, which made us totally forget the lack of pyro and the like.
During the instrumental Something for the ages we got to meet new guitarist Pontus Norgren, who took over the lead role in that department after Stefan Elmgren’s departure, since it’s well known that the lanky Dronjak rarely opts for solo excursions, either in the studio or on stage. Norgren brought some new moves to HammerFall’s music, though they’re still strongly tied to the best-known Swedish shredder, Malmsteen, with whom Pontus worked for a long time. After the hits Any means neccesary and Natural high, with which the band promoted its last two albums, we finally got the famous Riders on the storm shortly before the end, where an attentive listener was bothered by Cans’ previously mentioned excessive care for his vocal cords, since the vocalist sang the high-pitched part before the solo an octave lower than on the album. The years have obviously taken their toll, as shown by the fact that Cans did the same the day before. In the encore we heard Lore of the arcane, trailblazers, and the legendary Let the hammer fall, whose riffs took us back to the days when Accept and Judas priest ruled the world’s stages, and the set closed with the first hit off the album Crimson thunder, Hearts on fire.
HammerFall did their job with distinction despite the problems, but one could still fairly ask how they would have fared after Sabaton if, as the event’s main act, they hadn’t had a stage twice as big, twice as much time and really original special effects. But that question is beside the point. Far more important is the general realization that gigs like this, in our neighborhood and in somewhat more far-flung parts too, are still well attended and well received, and that new generations still respond to the impulses of market-oriented music much as they did twenty-five years ago, so we don’t need to fear for the future of metal.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
BLOODBOUND: 1. Sweet Dreams 2. Metal Monster 3. Book Of The Dead 4. Take One 5. Nosferatu SABATON: 1. Introjavel 2. Ghost Division 3. The Art Of War 4. 40:1 5. Cliffs Of Gallipoli 6. Attero Dominatus 7. Price Of A Mile 8. Primo Victoria 9. Metal Machine 10. Outrodevil HAMMERFALL: 1. Punish And Enslave 2. Crimson Thunder 3. Legion 4. Blood Bound 5. Renegade 6. Hallowed Be My Name 7. The Abyss 8. Last Man Standing 9. Heeding The Call 10. Glory To The Brave 11. Something For The Ages 12. Any Means Necessary 13. Natural High 14. Keep The Flame Burning 15. Between Two Worlds 16. Riders Of The Storm —encore I.— 17. Lore of the Arcane 18. Trailblazers 19. Let The Hammer Fall —encore II.— 20. Hearts On Fire
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