[Photo sets from the gig: Sabaton / Korpiklaani / Tyr]
[avatar =”James” size=”50″ align=”left” /]Those of you that know me personally know that I like a bit of power metal now and again. When I heard that these three bands were coming to town, I immediately got tickets. This concert was a bit different, in the fact that I got to meet Joakim (Vocals) and Chris (Guitars) from Sabaton and Heri(Lead Vocals&Guitar) from Tyr prior to the concert. Huge thanks to Mosh for that. Walking past and saying hi to the Sabaton guys was something I’ll never forget.
On to the concert itself. As soon as I walked through the door, Tyr exploded onto the stage with “Blood of Heroes”. Once the song had finished, they were greeted with a thunderous applause. Contrary to the Fetus gig I was at last month, the place was packed from the opening of the doors. Tyr deserved it though, they gave a stellar performance and surely won some new fans. It was just a shame that they didn’t have a longer set.
Korpiklaani were up next. Having enjoyed their most recent album, Manala, I was looking forward to seeing how they sounded live. They garnered a good applause from the crowd, even though their set was a little strange. They didn’t play fan favourites such as “Beer Beer”. They instead chose to play slightly less well-known ones. Very surprising. They delivered a good set, however I felt as though they didn’t connect with the crowd as well as Tyr did.
A small interlude then followed, in which Hannes’ kit was unveiled. Sadly, the all yellow Swedish tank wasn’t there, nor was the other tank. Due to stage size, it seems they couldn’t get it out.
Blasting onto stage with the opening staple “Ghost Division” the band immediately got the crowd going and singing along. It did make me laugh when Joakim asked us to politely “Shut the fuck up” as the crowd kept chanting “Sabaton! Sabaton!”. Playing songs from the new album Heroes along with crowd favourites such as “Gott Mit Uns” (In Swedish) and “The Lion from the North”, the band delivered a killer set. A highlight was when Joakim was handed an AK-shaped guitar. Now I knew why I didn’t really see Par upstairs. He was surprised, and this then spawned 5 guitar solos. 3 from Joakim and 1 each from Chris and Thobbe. If you listened to the interview that Mosh did with Joakim, you’ll know why he had a guitar.
They also gave the crowd a bit of choice with the set-list. This was a nice touch, as we were able to hear songs that may not be played as much or that the Scottish audience prefers. One of these was the song “White Death”.
In short, this gig was easily the best I’ve been to this year. I knew it was going to be good, but my expectations were blown out the water by the awesomeness of it. If you’ve not seen Sabaton before and they are playing near you, go see them. You won’t be disappointed.
