Don’t go to England, your music won’t ever catch on”, that’s what Sabaton were told before they came to England 10 years ago and now here we are in 2017 and Sabaton are headlining another album tour for their 8th album ‘The Last Stand’. It’s their first time Headlining Brixton academy for tonight’s show. Sabaton are joined on this tour by fellow Swedish power metal band Twilight Fore and German heavy metal legends Accept.
Due to the fact that Twilight Fore was put on 10 minutes after doors opened, getting into the venue was an incredibly slow process, so much so that by the time I did get in, I had completely missed the bands set. As I was looking forward to seeing what Twilight Force had to offer. Ah well maybe next time.
Main support tonight comes from German rock legends Accept. They come on just like their first song says; ‘A Stampede with Wolf Hoffmann,’ sounding in good form tonight. They go straight into a crowd favourite “Stalingrad” and I thought the roof might come off from everyone screaming, when they started to play this. The band then rattle through a few more tracks “London Leather Boys” and “Princes of the Dawn” are both very strong offerings, getting the crowd involved a lot which, only adds to how good these songs are live.
“Fast As A Shark”, follows and it’s played so well by the band as they are screamed on by those in attendance. Two more songs go by in a flash and before you know it, the iconic riff from “Balls to the Wall” comes ringing out at this point. The audience is at what can only be describe as a fever pitch and boy, do they go off. It’s a great way to finish off what has been a very strong show from Accept, with them playing a verity of tracks from what I’ve seen tonight. Even after 40 years Accept still have a lot to give the world of rock and metal and they damn sure gave Sabaton a run for their money.
Before Sabaton came on stage, I thought I would take a look at the merchandise for this tour. While the variety of items on display looked good, the price for a standard tour shirt at 35 pounds however, was disgusting to see. I don’t know if it was due to the venue or if the bands alone really are now charging these very high prices. Therefore, I believe if these bands do keep putting the price up further, they’re going to see the revenue for their merchandise go down drastically. I think this is unfair to their fans and to make matters worse, both support bands’ merchandise were priced the same.
It’s just truly unbelievable and something they need to change very quickly, when the echo’s of the bands cover of “In The Army”, now fade away, the lights go down and you hear the “march to war”, and you know what’s about to happen, as Sabaton explode on to the stage in traditional fashion, with “Ghost Division”. It’s with their first offering from the new album ‘The Last Stand’ that you can tell this is going to be a set with a difference, once the band kicks into “Sparta”, with Joakim coming out dressed as a Spartan, joined by 4 more Spartan warriors. It looks amazing and added to an outstanding performance by the band on this song; it was something very special to watch and was worth the ticket price alone.
If you also add into this that the video screen at the back of the stage transmits further visuals for each track. The band carries on with the new songs, playing “Blood Of Bannock Burn” and again it’s another strong sign that the band have these new songs nailed down. Next up is another staple of any Sabaton show, the build up to “Swedish Pagans”, once we are introduced to Sabaton’s newest guitar player Tommy Johansson and the crowd finish singing, they’re told their fucking way, we are playing that song but yet they always do it’s a fun little back and forth between the crowd & band, that never gets old.
Once “Carolus Rex” is finished, we are given the title track of the new album “The Last Stand”; it sounds amazing and again the use of the video screen helps add more of an atmosphere to the performance. What comes next is something different as the band plays “The Final Solution”, completely acoustic, with Tommy Johansson playing the keyboard, it was somewhat surreal yet incredibly powerful all at once. This band knows how to play acoustic really well; however I would have liked more of it.
It also looks like Sabaton got a replacement guitar player and new keyboardist all in one go, as he was really, really good. We than hear some more crowd favourites like “Resist’, ‘Bite” and “Lion from the North”, another new album track with “The Lost Battalion”. Outside of what looked like some pyrotechnics that didn’t exactly go off in the right place, that were meant to coincide with the what was going on the video screen , however the lead singer in the song itself was really good with Joakim sounding strong on the vocals.
Then to end the night, we had an encore of “Primo Victoria”, followed by the last new song “Shiroyama” and finished off with “To Hell and Back”. The set list tonight was a strong balance with a great performance of the new songs which mixed some old favorites and one hell of a powerful acoustic track, even though the venue looked around only half full, you wouldn’t of known it, at times tonight.
Sabaton proved more tonight then ever even after coming to England for 10 years; why they’re one of the best bands around currently and I think they’re only going to get better over time if you add to that the crowds they play to are only going to keep getting bigger; finally this show proves once and for all that England really is their second home.
