GIG REVIEW: BEHEMOTH Conquers All in Vicar Street, Dublin

12th February 2019 admin

10 February 2019

The moment this show was announced for Vicar Street a significant buzz got generated around the Metal Scene in Ireland, a lot of us have watched Behemoth grow and develop into a master of their craft and one of the best live Extreme Metal bands on the planet. So when they added At The Gates and Wolves In The Throne Room to the bill for this Tour it was just a real added bonus.

In the run up to the show when the Sold Out sign went up tonight’s Promoter Fergal Holmes of DME Promotions mentioned that band and promoter had come a long way from the first Behemoth show in Dublin where they attracted a crowd of 140 to this Sold Out show at the 1500 Vicar Street venue, and it’s an important to see this kind of transition for an extreme Metal band. Having been at that first show in Whelan’s it’s brilliant to see these guys progressing and being embraced by a whole new generation of Metal fans.

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM

Opening up proceedings, Wolves In The Throne Room take to the stage fitting strangely around a drum kit, and it takes away from the atmosphere they are trying to create, but at the same time it doesn’t deter the band. As you view the stage the layout is to the left Bass, Drums, Guitar/Lead Vocals then the wall of a drum kit and the right side holds Keyboards and lead Guitar.

The crowd is massive for an opening act at a show like this with he venue looking quite close to capacity already, and they power through their set, with minimal fuss and very little interaction with the audience, and perhaps tonight that’s why they didn’t grab me as much as I’d expected. Nothing wrong with how they played, but somehow it felt a little disjointed. Highlight of the set for me was “The Old Ones Are With Us”, will look forward to catching them another time.

AT THE GATES

The crowd is pumped and when Swedish Melodic Death legends At The Gates hit the stage, since the reunion in 2007 the band have moved slowly from some live dates to releasing new material and two albums later they are playing a lot more dates and this was always going to be a highlight of the night. .

Musically they are just nailing it riff after riff is on point, Erlandsson’s Drumming is just so powerful and he makes it look so easy and add to that Lindberg;s excellent vocals and the fact that he was engaging the audience as much as possible and bringing them into the show. The set flew in filled with a great mix from the last few albums, of classics and new tracks from last years To Drink From The Night Itself.

The band are so tight while also giving an air of enjoying what they do. There are a lot more people getting involved for this set, plenty of old school heads moving around the front. “Slaughter Of The Soul” really kicks things off into a higher gear, the band have a bit more room to move in and you can feel everything lifting around you as the set progresses. Of course the tracks from the Slaughter Of The Soul album are going to go down a storm, but also “Daggers Of Black Haze” which sounded great, One track flows into the next and it really is awesome to have this band back on the scene, tonight they are on fire, “Suicide Nation” and of course “Blinded By Fear” rip the roof off and that is how you play a support set, not an easy one to follow but as you look around you there’s no longer space to move..

BEHEMOTH

From a darkened room some shadows begin appear barely visible on the large stage as the intro of “Solve“ envelops all that are in attendance, you can just feel something epic is about to smash you full in the face. Behemoth have evolved over the last 10 years to become a much larger entity, this Tour has sold out many venues across the UK larger than the Dublin show, they are moving higher up the orders at International Festivals and they exude a confidence that shows they believe they have arrived where they want to be as a band.

Tonight’s show is a part of the Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica Tour and naturally the new album I Loved You At Your Darkest gets a good airing in the set, with no less than 7 tracks on show, but that’s not a bad thing and the new songs come across brilliantly live, even more so than when first listening to the album, “God=Dog” is a monster live and as with everything tonight Nergal conducts the orchestra with ease be leading the band or the crowd. It’s clearly visible that many in attendance know the lyrics to both new and older tracks and there’s plenty of singing and chanting.

They embrace the darkness and through their music turn it around and make it a positive force, having seen the band a number of times it’s great that tonight is one of the best I’ve seen. We are also treated to a number the songs that have pushed Behemoth to the top of their game, “Of Fire And The Void”, “Decade Of Therion” and “Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel” are all just brilliant and Nergal is in great form, especially delighted that Ireland has done away with the Blasphemy law and that there are of course a large number of Polish fans in the crowd. Orion and Inferno are powerfully aiding to rip Vicar Street apart, and each track seems to send the crowd into raptures, special night indeed.

Again this headline set seems to fly by all too quickly and it seems like no time at all until we hit the encore, “We Are The Next 1000 Years” first perfectly and is probably my song of the set before “Coagvla” brings things to an all to early finish with everyone on drums it’s an interesting way to end the set. Behemoth need to return soon, they have something not too many bands these days have, a certain charisma but most importantly a sheer level of power and brutality that’s maintained despite them reaching new ground as a band.

Setlist –