  
The night kicked off with SSS. With a thrash/hardcore sound they reminded me of Lawnmower Deth, but minus the humour that makes them worth watching and listening to. They blasted through a load of songs - I've got no idea how many as they were so short and went from one to another with no noticeable gap or change in sound. At one point the singer said "here are 5 for you", and the fact he had to hold up fingers indicating when they moved onto a new song suggests that people couldnt tell otherwise - I certainly couldn't. A pretty poor start to the night in my opinion, and the lukewarm response from the crowd suggests plenty of other fans weren't impressed either. I'd give them a score of 2/10
Next up though was a band that plenty of fans were looking forward to. Recently reformed after a 20 year gap, this was old-school thrash, and was a perfect fit for the Kreator crowd - the fans were loving it, despite the poor sound early on (which improved but was never good). I'd been looking forward to seeing them play with Lawnmower Deth in December, so their addition to the Kreator bill was a pleasant surprise. They put in a great performance and had plenty of fans in the crowd headbanging away. It's a shame that like SSS they played in near darkness for most of their set - clearly the lighting engineer tonight was as bad as the sound engineer. 7/10
Next up was Evile. A great live band, I'd been looking forward to seeing them again, but the crew did their best to spoil any enjoyment. Firstly they too played in almost darkness with only drummer Ben well lit in a pool of red light - you couldn't see the faces of the others at all. Then even more unforgiveably, the sound engineer (well I assume they had someone manning the sound desk) managed to produce a horrifically muddy poor sound that really lowered the enjoyment level. At times the vocals were almost inaudible, and overall the sound was just awful. It improved slightly but again was never good. On stage Evile were putting in a good performance and showing why they are one of the best loved british thrash bands around and did get the crowd having fun. Sadly though whereas I'd normally have said they deserved 8/10, the poor sound knocked it down to a 6/10.
Evile setlist:
Infected nation
Eternal empire
Cult
Underworld
Head of the demon
Thrasher
Five serpents teeth
In dreams of...
Finally it was time to enjoy the headliners - German thrash legends Kreator. Once Evile's drum kit was cleared away the full stage set could be seen. With what looked like dinosaurs on top of piles of skulls, and with severed heads hanging from the mic stands on the raised platforms at the rear of the stage this was looking good. They came on to a rapturous welcome and with CO2 cannons firing huge jets of smoke at the front of the stage they launched into their set. Again they suffered from poor sound for the first part of their set (god knows what was going on with the sound tonight as it's usually much better at the Forum - I can only guess the bands brought their own sound guys who had no idea how to get a good sound for the venue). What can I say - Kreator just made destroying a venue seem easy. They opened the set with a couple of tracks from their latest album (Phantom Antichrist), playing five songs tonight from that album, and no wonder - it's a great album. In terms of the performance, this really was a faultless show tonight with Kreator showing that they are one of the best thrash bands around. If the sound and lighting had been better this would have been transformed from a great night to a totally amazing one.
Kreator setlist:
Phantom Antichrist
From Flood into Fire
Enemy of God
Phobia
Hordes of Chaos (A Necrologue for the Elite)
Civilization Collapse
Voices of the Dead
Extreme Aggression
People of the Lie
Death to the World
Coma of Souls / Endless Pain
Pleasure to Kill
Encore:
Violent Revolution
United in Hate
Betrayer
Flag of Hate / Tormentor |
Do your homework on them