Author: Rok Klemše
Location: Dvorana MediaPark / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 30.01.2007
Attendance: 800
Ticket price: €26.00
Barely two weeks had passed since the death metal feast with Kataklysm, and Master of Metal had already treated us to another concert package. This time the Swedish power metal armored division Sabaton and the German heavy metal Gravediggers rolled into VPK Mediapark, with Sweden’s own Beast, Therion, in command. You could feel it in the air that a proper metal party was coming, and with names like these, nothing less was really to be expected. And sure enough… what we got was one of the best shows we’ve had the chance to see at Cvetličarna.
Sabaton 19:55 – 20:30
A few minutes past eight, the Swedish soldiers of Sabaton marched onto the stage. They’re a fairly unknown band here, since sadly their records aren’t distributed in Slovenia, and yet Slovenian headbangers already knew them pretty well. Sabaton play very good, fairly cliché power metal, which they season really well with excellent lyrics that dig mostly into war history – all the way from World War I, through the Falklands conflict, to the tragedy of 9/11. And the guys really do come across on stage like a well-oiled war machine. They plow through everything in their path, hard and without compromise! The standout is charismatic frontman Joakim, who cracked us up with his getup, some kind of breastplates, but makes up for the slightly comical look with a fantastic voice. “I don’t know why we got German beer when Union is excellent?!” Joakim wondered, earning thunderous approval from an already sizable crowd. It doesn’t happen all that often at metal shows in Mediapark that the first support act has such a big and fired-up crowd. When General Joakim and his regiment called, there was no shortage of headbanging or horns in the air. Sabaton have a pretty fresh record in the oven, Attero Dominatus, one of the best-received albums among critics last year, and personally, the track I was most impatient for was its hard-hitting title song. Power metal at its best! “Attero Dominatus!” But the rest of the songs didn’t lag far behind, especially Panzer Batallion, which is becoming the band’s best-known track, and the punchy title track of their first record, Primo Victoria. I can’t complain about the sound either. In fact, a support band hasn’t deserved a PA this good at Cvetličarna in a long time. The sound only earns a minor minus for occasional pops in the speakers, though thankfully there weren’t many. Sadly, first support acts only get around half an hour, and Sabaton also said goodbye after the closing “Metal Medley” (a combination of the songs Metal Machine and Metal Crüe) with an interesting, humorous text (the lyrics for Metal Crüe are made up mostly of metal band names). Sabaton proved they’re a band with a lot of promise, and I hope we’ll get to see them on our stages again, which is what they want too. (You’ll be able to read an interview with Sabaton on the pages of Rockline soon.) Sabaton’s set is easiest to sum up with a song title – Primo Victoria (first victory)!
Grave Digger 20:50 – 22:15
This time the crowd was pretty split, since roughly speaking, half came for Grave Digger and half for Therion. Either way, around nine, to roaring cheers, the legendary German Grave Digger, one of the standard-bearers of “true metal,” marched onto the stage. I’d been really looking forward to them personally, since I’d never seen them, but right away I was a bit baffled… Did they change keyboardists? Where’s the guy in the costume?! Well, slightly surprised, I eventually figured out that Katzenburg was still standing at the keyboards… Apparently dressing up as death is no longer in fashion. Anyway, Grave Digger greeted us with a fantastic, atmospheric opener from the new record, Liberty Or Death. Two minutes of instrumental intro and then Boltendahl’s sweet-sounding croak cut through the air. Heaven! Well… hell, to stay “tr00” 😉 The energy of Grave Digger, who are getting on in years, is simply incredible on stage. Especially the bouncy Boltendahl and the Dean guitar legend Manni Schmidt. Jens Becker was, typically for bassists, a bit more static and in the background, though he warmed up toward the end of the Grave Digger set. Grave Digger fans got a bit shortchanged this time, since the Gravediggers were co-headliners only in Germany and support for Therion everywhere else. So instead of 20 songs, we got “only” 14. But it was an hour and twenty minutes of pure heavy metal heaven! The real diehards certainly took issue with the setlist. I was totally happy with it, but then I was seeing Grave Digger for the first time and hadn’t heard the same songs n times already. The Gravediggers definitely have a discography treasure chest that they could open a few more centimeters in the future… Personally I missed the records The Reaper and Heart of Darkness, and to my surprise they even played their own “anthem,” The Grave Digger. Enjoying classics like Excalibur, Lionheart, Valhalla, Knights of the Cross and the rest was so much fun that the Germans are half forgiven. From the new record, besides the aforementioned opener, Liberty or Death, they played Highland Tears and Silent Revolution… Strange, since the tour was meant to support the new album, but to be honest, I didn’t miss more songs from it. The sound was excellent again, with a few pops, but otherwise crystal clear. They started the obligatory encore in a rather odd way with The Last Supper, but fixed the taste at the end with the predictable but all the more energetic classic Heavy Metal Breakdown, turning VPK into a Heavy Metal Madhouse!
Chris and the gang are still rocking hard in their old age and I’m already looking forward to their return to Slovenia. The fans showed why they love coming back so much.
Therion 22:40 – 00:25
Just like Grave Digger, Therion also love coming back to us. Personally I’d been waiting for them impatiently, and their latest record, Gothic Kabbalah, will go down for me as one of the best albums of 2007. Therion made it clear they won’t be playing songs from before the Theli record anymore, since the band’s boss and guitarist Christofer Johnson gave up vocal duties and with that buried the last death metal elements of the band (Christofer was the one in charge of growling). I support the band’s decision, since they’ve proven many times that Therion aren’t a band that stagnates, but one that strives to evolve its sound. So let’s see how Therion did this time….
The hall went dark shortly before eleven, and the band marched onto the stage to the sounds of the track Mitternacht Löwe, with the recording taking over the intro duty. There were as many as 8 musicians on stage, four of them vocalists! Yes, you read that right, four. And it’s hard to put into words how they pulled it off. Almost two hours of vocal perfection were spun out live right in front of us! Two fantastic male voices and two angelic female voices… Finger-licking good. The vocal chops in Therion were shown off by Mats Leven (ex-Yngwie Malmsteen, At Vance), Snowy Shaw (former drummer of Mercyful Fate, King Diamond and Dream Evil), and opera singers Katarina Lilja and Hannah Holgersson. You simply can’t praise their incredible singing enough. Mighty, emotional, magical, mystical, enchanting… They also contributed a ton to the band’s performance. I haven’t seen such a dynamic show in a long time. The constant swapping of vocalists from the back to the front, the incredibly charismatic Snowy, and Mats too (Leven proved he’s not just the best Swedish vocalist in name), and the two ladies that had the male population of the hall drooling. And then there were the props, like the book Snowy recited the lyrics from, and the flag… All of it added up to a magical evening that gave me goosebumps all over – I’ve only experienced an evening this atmospheric and magical once before, at Opeth in Treviso. The instrumental precision and liveliness of Christofer and Kristian on guitar deserve a big plus too, as does the rhythm section with Johan on bass and Petter’s dynamic drumming, and the man behind the kit also proved himself a fifth vocalist a few times. Too bad we didn’t hear the keyboards live, only from tape. If the sound acted up a bit now and then with Sabaton and Grave Digger, with Therion it was set to “zero.” Fantastic sound, you could make out every bass line, every guitar note and everything that goes with them. The excellent setlist, with the perfect balance of new and old material, earns an A-plus too. I’d single out Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah, Ginnugagap, The Blood of Kingu, To Mega Therion, Son of the Sun and the, to me, gorgeous Perrenial Sophia… Well, that’s pretty much the entire setlist already, haha. Petter provided a surprise too with an excellent drum solo, with Mats and Snowy helping him out. Awesome! As if that wasn’t enough, Therion offered us something truly special at the very end. They said goodbye with a Manowar cover, Thor the Powerhead, which Snowy sang fantastically, even swinging Thor’s hammer in between. Outstanding! I can’t find any other words…
Hm.. a pretty long report, but a concert like this deserves it and then some. A fantastic show, and I hope Master of Metal will surprise us with something similar soon.
Setlist
SABATON:
1. Intro
2. Panzer Batallion
3. In The Name Of God
4. Attero Dominatus
5. Into The Fire
6. Primo Victoria
7. Metal Medley (Metal Machine + Metal Crue)
GRAVE DIGGER:
1. Liberty Or Death
2. Dark Of The Sun
3. Excalibur
4. Valhalla
5. Lionheart
6. The Roundtable
7. The Raven
8. Morgane LeFay
9. Highland Tears
10. Silent Revolution
11. Knights Of The Cross
12. Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching)
—encore—
13. The Last Supper
14. Heavy Metal Breakdown
THERION:
1. Mitternacht Lowe
2. Scwartzalbenheim
3. The Blood of Kingu
4. Falling Stone
5. An Arrow From the Sun
6. Deggial E
7. Wine of Aluqah
8. Perennial Sophia
9. Son of the Sun
10. Son of the Staves of Time
11. Birth of Venus Illegitima
12. Tuna 1613 (+ drum solo)
13. Muspelheim
14. Rise of Sodom and Gomorrah
15. Ginnugagap
16. Grand Finale
17. Lemuria
18. Nightside of Eden
19. To Mega Therion
20. Thor the Powerhead (Manowar cover)
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