Having just released their latest album, Deep calleth upon deep, Satyricon have taken to the road for a relatively rare European tour. Always an excellent live band we headed out to catch their show in 013, which promised to be a 2,5 hour set.
Maybe it was just because the gig started at the very early hour of 6:30pm, maybe because it was a Tuesday night or maybe it is because having a metal core/hardcore band touring with Satyricon is odd, but opener Fight the Fight played for a mostly empty room. Only those few people who really wanted to be front and center for Satyricon, and a few press are in the room as these guys play. Strangely enough they seemed to consist of the same band members opening for Satyricon 2 years ago in Nijmegen, but they have changed their name. Sadly their 13 a dozen metal-core has not really improved and still fails to convince the few people who were in the room.
After a short changeover Suicidal Angels take over. A very solid and accomplished thrash metal band they are, and while to me it feels a bit odd to have a thrash band opening for a black metal oriented band, the significantly swelled crowd sure enjoyed themselves a lot, to the point of even starting a few mosh pits. The music is well written and excellently performed, ad even the crowd hyping antics of the band are well timed and go down well.
Now we were in for a long wait as the room filled up to what almost feels capacity. Satyricon announced they would play a 2,5 hour set, shifting the entire timetable forward and while they did play a long time, they shot well wide of that 2,5 hour mark. The set was divided up into three acts, where the first two clearly focused more on the last album and the two before that, and the final act consists mostly of the greatest hits and classics the band ever wrote. I was quite pleased to hear Mother North and Fuel for hatred in there, and while it was a pity to not have some of the more experimentally oriented songs of the later era in there, the fact they have worked with more guests on those means it’s going to be less easy to perform.
Satyr is one of the most mesmerizing front men you can watch play with a crowd, and with no effort at all he has them eating from his hand. Apart from headbanging a little less than he did before, his presence and command of a stage has not waned a bit. The new songs managed to convince me much more live than they did on record, and apart from one of the guitarists missing a few notes here and there, in general Satyricon still rule a stage and the crowd seemed quite pleased after the final notes of K.I.N.G. died down.
