By Jase Walker
It’s not often you get a chance to easily drop along to one of the biggest names in black metal, but not just that, a specialist throwback set at that. Tonight it’s Abbath playing a special Immortal set and I wasn’t going to let this one slip by easily!
Admittedly I have goofed today, in a way that I don’t normally do. I had no idea that the doors opened at a crazy early 17:30 for this show with the first band, Hulder, starting at 18:00! So unfortunately I’ve missed their set, I dislike that immensely as I take a lot of pride seeing every single band on the bill. Anyway we’ve still got another further two bands to go before Abbath does his bits, Vltimas and Kampfar, leading to a finishing time estimated at 22:40 – and believe me I’m doing this on 3 hours sleep today.
Admittedly I did think it was somewhat ambitious to try for 20 minute stage changes when it comes to a bunch of bands with probably less than regular setups but so far Vltimas are running ten minutes behind so curious to see if the whole show just extends and eats up the extra time or if they get their set cut short. It’s always a danger when it comes to events with four bands on, everything needs to run so incredibly well or sets get cut and in some cases entire band appearances skipped.
The drummer of Vlitmas quietly gets awkwardly into his seat, there is such a huge quagmire of equipment on stage so I genuinely wonder what Hulder had to deal with. Their singer eventually joins the rest on stage with an outfit looking like a mashup between goth and cowboy but with a singing style that matches the latter, albeit with a real gravelly voice.
To start with I wasn’t keen as I thought they’d lean a lot closer to drone or doom but there’s a solid mix of slower parts with hypnotic arpeggios and just smashing the fuck out of the drums with some rapid fire riffs that remind me a lot of earlier Opeth. There’s some really good clean guitar work in this and it’s really caught my ear, frequently mixing together overlapping melodies between each guitar while the bass carried the main chord progression and even fitting in their own fills now and then. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many bloody strobes used in one show before – and I’ve seen Enter Shikari loads.
Vltimas have a lot of balls and grit to their sound, there’s always something a bit more subtle about the performance of this kind of Black(need) metal. The band themselves don’t always move around a ton but the relentless tremolo picking accompanied with double bass pedals being smashed into the drums as a signature sound is a beast in its own right if you manage to avoid falling into repetitive pitfalls which Vltimas deftly evade. It’s definitely interesting seeing the difference in crowd response tonight vs the more metalcore adjacent shows I’ve been to, people are clearly enjoying them but not really wanting to smash into each other. On the whole though, Vltimas absolutely smashed their set and not too far behind schedule – but the stage hands are gonna have to get cracking if they want to claw back some minutes!
- Vltimas support Batushka in September/October.
We’re really running behind at this point as Kampfar should have started about 20 minutes or so ago now, by the looks of things this seems to be down to some sort of sound issue with the drums. Now at 30 mins behind, I do wonder what the hell is going to happen with the end time of the show, surely there needs to be a few cut songs here and there now? Either way, Kampfar get their set going with what seems to be a pretty long intro track and they’re up and ready to go. For what it’s worth considering the apparent drum issues, they sound pretty damn good but it’s noticeable how quiet the guitars are in comparison. These guys are a lot more keen on moving around the stage which is always welcome as we’re here to see a band as much as listen to them. I also find it mildly amusing that a black metal band has floodlights on the floor that remind me a lot of a psychedelic oil painting, not the most grim dark colour expression ever really is it?
The sound balance has improved massively partway through the set and the guitar presence has improved and things sound a lot better overall now. Admittedly I’m probably not quite as much of a fan of Kampfar as I was with Vltimas but I’ll give them absolute credit with the show sounding fantastic now and they’re kicking out some real meaty stuff. Shame about the audience reaction so far though, another case of clearly enjoying it but just no real movement to properly show that. Sadly the cut for the time catch-ups in tonight’s show was Kampfar’s remaining set time, they seemed less than pleased about it but the response from the crowd, while definitely positive, was somewhat lacklustre. Shame really because Kampfar’s performance was damn good.
During the switchover a large curtain goes up across the stage, bearing Abbath‘s face and signature corpsepaint moniker across it. The reclaimed time sees Abbath’s set start at the right moment, the curtain falls revealing the man himself doing his very well known crab-walk with the other band members sporting gothy outfits and faces also covered in corpse paint. Abbath is sounding massive right from the start, fantastic balance all around and all together is easily one of the meatiest live sounds I’ve seen in this venue. One thing I do love about Abbath is how totally unserious and a bit goofy he is all the while blasting your face with black metal. As you’d probably expect with an Immortal special set, it is absolutely fucking relentless, a little bit silly at times, but always always brutal and blast beats, can’t forget about those. It looks like the crowds woke up a bit too. Finally, a massive pit has begun in the middle of the crowd, shame they didn’t show this kind of energy for the rest of the acts.
I do wonder what the hell the security are doing after several people started crowd surfing to the front only for people to bat them away because the security personnel just kind of stood there and didn’t even try to grab them. Although it’s a bit more understandable as shortly after its revealed that the set of boxes down the front are a large pyrotechnics set that begin bellowing out flame jets.
I figured this was going to be a lot of fun but I don’t think I really anticipated how utterly epic the whole thing would be. This could easily be the sort of set you see high up on Bloodstock or Hellfest with the amount of fire and smoke jets being used and how gigantic the auditory experience is alongside it. Also don’t think I’ve ever seen a stagehand hurriedly scurry into stage to place a large surface fan in front of the lead before but first time for everything right?
There’s also fireworks in these pyro boxes too, what an interesting box of tricks those things are! This whole show has been far more than what I expected, I had fairly high expectations going in anyway because as I’ve noted with a lot of artists that stand the test of time, they clearly know what they’re doing but I’ve been properly blown away. The whole set from Abbath has sounded fantastic, seriously entertaining stuff that’s every bit a proper performance masterclass despite being a bit silly here and there. What a phenomenal show, now where’s my fucking corpse paint?
The tour continues:
- All content © Über Rock. Not to be reproduced in part or in whole without the express written permission of Über Rock.