Aeterna's Blog

Within an hour I’ll be picked up to go to another Sabaton concert. For those who haven’t read my older blogposts: They’re my favorite band. This means that I won’t be recording much and might not even be able to record properly in the upcoming week as my voice will probably still be gone after all the singing screaming.

Power of Metal Tour II:
09-11-2011 at De Effenaar, Eindhoven the Netherlands.

Skull Fist

Homepage: myspace.com/skullfisted
Setlist: Click
Video: One, Two
So Skull Fist, they were the first support act and that in general is really hard. I don’t think anybody had really heard of them and overall; the music was fine. It was actually kinda good. Their genre which is straight-up 80′s hairmetal is not my thing and the singing in particular was annoying to me. They didn’t get much of any crowd response but they played fine and even joked at their own expense, but still I was glad to see them go because I had heard such good things about Powerwolf who was up next.

Powerwolf

Homepage: Powerwolf.net
Setlist: Click
Video: Intro, Two, Three
When Powerwolf hit the stage, they created atmosphere immediately and though they seemed largely unknown, they grabbed the spotlight and got people going immediately. I have to point out that the frontman was excellent. They were very entertaining and despite me and most of the crowd not knowing along, we did song what we could and clapped along and it was a crying shame that they had to go. The videos listed above even show the great atmosphere, it couldn’t have been more different than Skull Fist’s set.

If they tour near you in the future; be sure to do yourself a favor by checking them out.

Grave Digger

Homepage: Grave-Digger-Clan.com
Setlist: Click
Video: One, Two, Three, Four
What do I even say about Grave Digger? They’re a very old band and they make old heavy metal. Which is fine, but just as with Skull Fist, I don’t like the singing at all. The music and riffs at times were good and sometimes even excellent for headbanging. However then the singing began and it became painful to my ears, at a point even literally. I’d like to forget all about the singer. It’s such a shame. The third and fourth video links espcially show this; they start with great riffs and then it gets ruined. This really was the worst set that night. I hope I never have to see them again.

Sabaton

Homepage: Sabaton.net
Setlist: Click
Video: Intro, One, Two, Three, Four, Five
This show was pretty great. It was Sabaton as always really. Tons of fun, energetic and joking meanwhile. With every song I could hear the whole crowd singing and when Cliffs of Gallipoli came up it gave me goosebumps once more. One thing was annoying though which were the crowdsurfers. At the front where I was standing there were groups of girls and some little kids (and I mean little!) so they clearly could not carry crowdsurfers.. which caused problems as they kept coming. The front rows kept pushing them back over to the back and I think only maybe 2 or 3 crowdsurfers didn’t fall to the ground. Some even got thrown high up and were then not caught or landed on their necks. I was actually very worried about the safety at that point.

If you haven’t heard of or read about Sabaton before; check the first and fifth video links as those give a prettty decent idea of the band I would say. If you don’t like all the noisy metal; check out video 3 to get that impression for a softer song. Joachim Broden, the frontman/singer is a king at what he does. While he and the rest of the band are doing their thing you can tell they’re having genuine fun. The crowd of Sabaton shows are always so incredibly energetic and shout their lungs out, there is nothing like it, I love it and can’t describe it any other way.

All in all though; A damn great show with Powerwolf being the very positive surprise.