Yesterday marked what must have been one of the most enjoyable days in my whole fuckin’ life, I shit you not. I haven’t had such a good time in years and the smile on my face was both ridiculous and terrifying. Similarly, the ache in my upper neck muscles I’m currently experiencing is ridiculous and excruciating. All attributed to the efforts of Septic Flesh, As I Lay Dying and Amon Amarth, each in its bigger or smaller share.

I picked up my cousin at around 6 last night and we drove the 45 minutes to the city of Hengelo with humongous anticipation. As far as we were aware of, we were going to see Amon Amarth and we would get As I Lay Dying as a nifty bonus. We were already happy as babies being served their portion of porridge. And we had no clue Septicflesh was coming too, neither the website nor our tickets mentioned the coming of the Athens-based outfit of masterful brutal Sympho Death, and so our night would prove to be even more awesome than already anticipated.

Seth Siro Anton and his mates took the stage at a quarter past seven and for about three quarters of an hour and played and used that time to play big chunks of their latest The Great Mass album, which they released in April of this year. Beneficial for us, because we had plenty space and a great view on the spectacle playing right in front of us, but not nearly respectful of this band’s abilities there were only a few hands full of people attending the venue at that time. Perhaps there were a hundred people in total, it’s difficult to estimate in hindsight.

Most people would come in later, ‘cause the tickets stated the show wouldn’t actually commence until eight, when Septic Flesh had just stepped down from the stage. And in fact I even spoke to a couple of guys later that had come especially for Septic Flesh only to find out they had already left the stage when they arrived. Fucked up communication!

Regardless, Septicflesh brought their shit with flawless execution and brutal force. The symphonic elements that so strongly characterize their style came through perfectly and the blasting tones of the guitars and bass sent their vibrations straight through the lungs of all attending. They brought their performance extremely convincing and it landed them with at least one additional album sales, as I picked up the record in between bands later.

There was a bit of a break then, well spent by yours truly drinking beer, before America’s As I Lay Dying went on stage. Tim Lambesis looked pumped up like a frickin’ K1 fighter or something, potentially a bit too conscious about the way he looked, but he played his part very well. Compared to the delicious treat offered by Septicflesh earlier, As I Lay Dying was a bit of a step back for the careful listener, but in terms of headbangability, they definitely made up for that.

Compared to the two other bands that played that night, they may have been slightly overpowered and outpaced, but by all means did they put up a great show. Many of their catchy songs came and went and at the end of what must have been about an hour of their playing the only songs I found sorely lacking was Forever, a song that I had definitely hoped they would play. I wasn’t to be and there was no ‘we want more’ that called for it, undoubtedly because there was only one thing on everyone’s mind by then: Amon Amarth!

In total the Vikings from Sweden played around an hour and a half, closing the show at around eleven and it was like an hour and a half orgasm. Johan Hegg definitely hadn’t yet lost his voice from touring and he sounded full, deep and powerful. The same went for the drums that pummeled and pounded in the groove-rich, war-spirit inducing way that is so characteristics of Amon Amarth’s serving of Viking Metal.

It was during Amon Amarth’s performance that I treated myself to a whiplash, a hernia and some broken vertebrae. If there was ever a more valid reason to snap some vertebrae, I’ll eat a drum stick. I really cannot find the words to describe how awesome AA’s performance was. I just remember that all I could think during the concert was that I hoped the show would just never end and that if hell was anything like this – which some people think should be pretty accurate – I just really want to go there! And Death in a Fire would be my preferred way of getting there.

At the end of their performance there were two songs I had hoped to hear that I didn’t get. These were Thousand Years of Oppression and Live for the Kill, but in all honesty the Swedes really gave all of their most majestic songs and these songs have been playing in my head for the last 24 hours now.

Because I’m of the sharing type and just plain and simple because I want you to experience a small amount of what I experienced last night, I’ve dumped some recordings of live performances, unfortunately not from yesterday’s actual show, by all three bands throughout this report. These are all songs played yesterday, so they should give you some impression of the amazing quality displayed by all three, in particular by the Greeks and the Swedes.

In short, it was absolutely amazing, but I wonder if I can send my doctor’s bill to Sweden…

Tags: American, death, Greek, Live!, melodic, metalcore, Swedish, symphonic, Viking

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 12:56 am and is filed under Gig Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.