By Jonny Bakes
This is a gig that I feel like I’ve been waiting forever to see with a lineup that manages to tick all of my boxes and strike two bands off of my bucket list after the agony of rescheduling. So it goes without saying that I was pretty damn excited when I made my way across London to the OVO Wembley arena for a night of theatrical metal with three bands who all know how to put on a good show. As I arrived at the arena, I was greeted by a huge display informing everyone that this show was a complete sellout, which must have happened in the near run up to the gig, meaning that there would be 11,000 people sharing the experience with me on this Saturday night in London!
It was great to see the wide demographic of the crowd entering the arena, with kids taking their parents to the show (instead of it being the other way round) which I think really shows that Sabaton are one of the greatest bands in the scene right now. Instead of dads introducing their kids to metal they listened to when they were growing up, we’re now seeing kids introducing their dads to new metal music that is accessible to nearly everyone. There was a real buzz about the arena as people piled in past the long and winding queue for the outdoor merch truck (which was pretty obliterated by the end of the event) and through into the arena where we were met by Finnish Eurovision winners Lordi…
I’d heard rumours of poor sound quality at the Leeds show on Friday night, but I’m very happy to report that there were no such issues here at Wembley! Lordi sounded as great as they did when I first heard them all the way back in 2006 (which makes it nearly 20 years I’d been waiting to see them). It was everything I expected though as the band were true to their form and hit the stage in full monster regalia with Mr Lordi towering over the crowd.
With a relatively short setlist focused on their eighteenth and latest album ‘Screem Writers Guild’ and the first three albums, there were a few tracks missing that I would have loved to have seen live. Glaringly absent for me were a number of tracks in the ‘Lordiversity’ collection which have blown me away in recent years, like ‘Bee to the Honey’, ‘Macho Freak’ and ‘Borderline’ which could have got the crowd really bouncing. But nevertheless we still got huge hits like ‘Would You Love a Monsterman’ and ‘Devil is a Loser’ which were both well received by the crowd, but it was clear that Lordi expected us to all be waiting for one thing…
So we were teased with a song from ‘Arockalypse’, not “that one” but the still memorable ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ for all your monster fetish needs before the final song of the set which was, of course, ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’. It was like being whisked back to being a 15 year old lad watching Eurovision with my mouth agape marvelling that these metal monsters could actually be considered the greatest act in Europe and was simply fantastic and the whole thing came to an end with a pitch perfect closing wail!
This was a great warmup for the next band who, sadly, have not won Eurovision but I’m sure only because of the technicality of not being from Europe… It’s the divisive, yet popular, Japanese export – Babymetal!
Lordi may have come in hard with the theatrics but Babymetal makes them look like utter statues with their incredibly energetic choreographed dancing. Now I know there are a few people that I spoke to during the night who don’t “get” Babymetal and that’s fine, not everyone has to like them but I thought they were incredible! The self-referential ‘BABYMETAL DEATH’ was the perfect opening song with the band making it crystal clear just who you were watching. The trio of Su-Metal, Moa-Metal and Momo-Metal simply exude positive energy that made it almost impossible not to dance along to favourites like ‘Megitsune’ and ‘PA PA YA!!’ before testing the waters with tracks from latest album, ‘The Other One’ which seem to go down a storm with the London crowd.
But it’s ‘Gimme Chocolate!!’ which gets the biggest reception, which is of no surprise considering it’s the song that brought this kawaii metal band global attention back in 2014. Like Lordi, it was a relatively short set which left me wanting more as I didn’t get the chance to hear songs like ‘Iine’ and ‘Karate’ but it just means I’ll have to catch them on their just-announced headline tour in the the autumn! I also think there was a bit of a missed opportunity to bring out ‘Oh! MAJINA!’ on which Joakim Brodén provided guest vocals, but considering what was to come in the form of an epic Sabaton show maybe Joakim wanted to reserve his energy.
It’s no secret that I’ve seen Sabaton more than a few times (three times on the ‘Heroes’ tour alone) since I started following them after a small after-headline slot at Hammerfest II in Prestatyn. So when I say that I was completely gobsmacked at the bombastic opening of this show please do not take that lightly! The show began with a tense recording of the ‘Sarajevo’ voiceover from the latest album ‘The War to End All Wars’ which was promptly halted by a light explosion followed by a rush of roadcrew with red head torches, we all thought something had gone wrong. But before we could really digest what was happening, there was an almighty explosion of pyrotechnics and the band immediately launched into ‘Ghost Division’ . It was simply incredible – all I could say was “holy shit!”
Throughout the whole set, the band look like they absolutely love being on stage and there’s plenty of antics between band members in the first few songs of the set. If it’s the game of “how many picks can we stick to Joakim’s head while he sweats because of all the fire?” during ‘Bismarck’ or Tommy and Joakim bouncing off each other during ‘The Last Stand’, the sheer joy is clearly visible. I’m pretty sure there were more flames and fireworks than a Rammstein gig, with each round of pyrotechnics more impressive than the last!
The setlist threw up a few surprises too; Sabaton have been canvassing their fans to determine what they wanted to see in their live shows and the outcome was that they wanted something that goes hard and fast, so they pulled out a song that hasn’t been seen for a while and I don’t think it’s been played in the UK since my first time seeing them in 2010 – it was the almighty ‘Into the Fire’ which was accompanied by plenty of, you guessed it, fire! We were also treated to the ‘Karolinens Bön’ (‘Carolus Rex’ in Swedish) to give everyone a lesson in their native language whilst adorned in their King’s Guard regalia.
The theatrics were also incredible throughout the set, with some particular highlights being the reenactment of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination during ‘Sarajevo’ (much to the delight of every former GCSE History student), the adornment of gas masks during ‘Attack of the Dead Men’ where they have perfected rigging a microphone into Joakim’s gas mask, and the two german soldiers armed with flamethrowers flanking the stage for ‘Stormtroopers’. Each song had a carefully thought out stage dynamic that took what was already a solid ten performance up to 11 and beyond, and lets not forget the inclusion of the red bi-plane keyboard for ‘The Red Baron’ too! (which was immortalised in a special Cobi stage set to accompany ‘The Great Show’ Blu Ray).
With such a monumental set of 18 songs, it now makes sense why the sets of Lordi and Babymetal were as short as they were. They had to make room for a whole host of songs spanning across Sabaton’s entire career with a back catalogue with countless songs worthy of inclusion. Not all of it was hard and fast though, with some of the gentler ballads making an appearance like ‘Soldier of Heaven’ where the band took to sitting on barstools in a 90s boy band style, and the recently released Motörhead cover ‘1916’. These provided a contrast to the heavier songs like ‘Primo Victoria’ and ‘Dreadnoughts’, the latter which was accompanied by footage of the Dreadnoughts viewed from a submarine periscope which could perhaps be a nod to the submarines that have borne the same name…
One thing remains clear after watching this show, Sabaton are the most powerful force in metal right now, and no one can tell me otherwise! What is easily one of Sweden’s biggest musical exports of all time (alongside ABBA, of course) it begs the question why they aren’t considered to dethrone Lordi as metal Eurovision winners… But that aside, I think the OVO Arena was treated to an incredible lineup of bands who all showed why they’ve been so successful in their own ways; Lordi conquered Europe, Babymetal broke out of Japan and Sabaton, well, they’re conquering the world! There’s going to be voids left by the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest in the not too distant future, but Sabaton are right at their heels to take on the mantle. An incredible night was had by all, and it’ll be one that will be firmly burned into the memory of all who attended.
- Photo courtesy of Sabaton.
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