A Quarter Of A Century Of Sabaton: A Personal Retrospective

By Jonny Bakes

2024 marks the 25th anniversary of Sabaton which will be celebrated by the band throughout the year in a number of different ways. There will be album listening parties for each of the ten albums where the band members share their thoughts and perspectives, album facts, prize-winning competitions and much more, so it promises to be a hell of a year for Sabaton fans! As I consider myself somewhat of a Sabaton fan myself (playing it cool…), to celebrate the quarter anniversary, I’ve reflected on my own experiences with the band for your reading pleasure.

My Sabaton experience initially started completely by accident at Hammerfest III in 2011 which had been a “dads and lads” holiday with my Dad.

After watching Satyricon, the others decided to call it a night in preparation for the long drive home the following day but, being the sprightly young teenager I was, I decided my night wasn’t over and was determined to see Viking Skull who were performing after the headliners. So I filled up a bottle of bourbon and Irn Bru and set off in search of adventure which eventually found me latching onto a group who were heading off to see the headliner called Sabaton who were supposedly pretty good, so I figured I might as well check it out. By the time they hit the second song in the set, ‘Uprising’, I was completely hooked and suffering from rigorous fist pumping and excessive headbanging and to this day I’m convinced that the fist pumping started unconsciously as well – it’s like the music took control of my body! This set me up for a whole night of antics that saw me return back to the chalet just in time for dad to be serving breakfast and subsequently crash out in the car – a story my dad loves to remind me about even now I’m in my 30s!

In the years since, I’ve had the opportunity to see Sabaton live countless times across the ÜK, festival slots (including the epic Bloodstock headliner set in 2019 after giving Trivium a really tough act to follow in 2015) and even making it across to Stockholm for the Sabaton cruise on a couple of occasions, more on that in a bit… But I think the moment that cemented my status as Sabaton super fan was the 2016 tour with Alestorm in support of the ‘Heroes’ album, for which I still have my “Trenches and Mead” T shirt.

It was this tour (the one on which they blew out the house PA in Belfast – Monk) that saw me hit three shows in a week in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester and fight my way to the barrier each time – I’m sure the guys were sick of the sight of me by then but I simply couldn’t get enough! Each show was packed with energy and the crowds were all wild, although I think the wildest crowd title goes to the Glasgow crowd (who would get even wilder a couple of years later when ‘Blood of Bannockburn’ dropped on the ‘The Last Stand’ album and became a regular in Scottish sets). I must have gone through several tins of cam-cream and lost loads of pairs of cheapo aviators but it was all worth it!

To this day ‘Heroes’ is stil my favourite album that I can happily listen to from cover to cover, which is exactly what I did for weeks after it came out in 2014 which happened to coincide with that awkward period of life between wrapping up uni and entering the real world of work. Hell, we even created a very simple drinking game with it to spice up our pre-drinking before hitting Eddies or Subside (Birmingham rock club staples at the time) which consisted of simply listening to the album from end to end and drinking every time the word “hero” or “heroes” was mentioned… turns out it’s quite a few times!

‘Heroes’ is a fantastic album though and signified a different approach to the stories being portrayed in the album by focusing on the stories of individuals instead of events. There’s a song portraying the story of Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler in the form of ‘No Bullets Fly’, a story of chivalry in the war-torn skies of Europe where a Luftwaffe pilot refused to shoot down a damaged bomber and instead escorted it out of enemy territory. There’s also the story of Karel Janoušek, a Czechoslavakian Air Force officer who played an integral part in the Battle of Britain while in exile in the ÜK, but was imprisoned when he returned to his Soviet controlled homeland after the war in what is a really tragic tale. But this inspired me to head to his memorial when on holiday in Prague, which is something I would have completely overlooked had it not been for Sabaton.

What makes Sabaton so special though? They’re clearly doing something right considering they have quadruple-platinum album sales, headlined Wacken, and sold out arenas across the globe. Firstly, the music is catchy as hell with the drums of Hannes Van Dahl laying down an infectious rhythm that spurs thousands of people to bounce in unison, the guitar work is impeccable with face-melting solos galore and the song structure has all the hallmarks of power metal – key changes, powerful choruses and plenty of chance for people to sing “woah-oh” in unison.

But not only that, each song can be a learning experience should you wish to dig into the stories being portrayed and you can learn a significant amount about military history from the ancient Greeks (‘Sparta’) through to modern conflicts like The Falklands (‘Back in Control’). In recent years, the band has taken this even further by teaming up with historian Indy Neidell to form the Sabaton History Channel on YouTube, which takes a deep dive into the stories of each of the songs to show the true stories that influence the music.

The thing that sets Sabaton apart from other bands for me though is their dedication to the fans and their humbleness. The band will frequently review fan mail which will often include suggestions for famous historical conflicts and events to cover, many of which have become tracks on albums – although I’m still waiting for my suggestion of an animals of war album to cover things like Wojtech the Soldier Bear?!

One thing that will always stand out to me is when I attended my first Sabaton Cruise in 2017 where the band set up a stand for meet and greets and must have met the entire population of the boat, when my little group finally got to the front of the queue and we got to have a chat, Joakim, Pär and the guys seemed genuinely excited that we’d travelled over from the ÜK to attend the cruise – by this point Sabaton were easily one of the biggest bands in power metal but to have this reaction from them completely blew me away!

In the 13 years of following Sabaton, they’ve been the soundtrack to some of the big events in my life and I’ve got many, many stories associated with them, some of my highlights are:

The time that their label, Nuclear Blast, picked up on my tweet review of ‘Heroes’ (long before I started writing for ÜR!) about it giving me a “manly tank boner”;
This quote from the Bloodstock headline set in 2019 – “Jonny, they’re going to play ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ because look at those pillars on the stage, there’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…6… well that’s nearly seven, so they’re definitely going to play it” – Peter A;
Being known as “The Brits” on my first Sabaton cruise, and having loads of Swedish guys shouting “bye Brits” as we disembarked;
The countless friends I’ve made across the world who I’ve met at Sabaton gigs, festivals or just bonded with over our love for Sabaton;
Drinking in the Tank Museum and singing Sabaton during the display of the Tiger II;
Heading to the Imperial War Museum as warm-up for the Wembley Arena show;
Bouncing to ‘Primo Victoria’ on a small passenger ferry to the point that we literally rocked the boat!

I’m sure there will be many more stories to come as we see what the future has in store for Sabaton, but one thing is for certain, they’ve become an unstoppable force of metal – much like Erwin Rommel’s Seventh Panzer Battalion who, of course, are better known as the Ghost Division! Now if that’s not a case of life imitating art, I don’t know what is.

Sabaton are certainly one to watch in 2024 as there will be plenty for fans to get involved with to make the 25th anniversary celebrations something to remember!

You can join Sabaton’s 25th anniversary celebrations on their official YouTube channel.

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