 | Written by Alex Stojanovic Photographed by Rob Botten (C) 2019 All rights reserved by www.metalmasterkingdom.com AMON AMARTH w/ ARCH ENEMY, AT THE GATES and GRAND MAGUS @ Rebel Toronto, ON, Canada October 9, 2019 Presented by Inertia Entertainment Click here for our interview with Jeff Loomis of Arch Enemy |
It's been a while since the fans in North America got to get their viking horns out and witness a full headline show from Amon Amarth. That being said, with the band releasing their eleventh studio album Berserker earlier this year, they headed out on tour in North America supporting Slayer on their final tour, then headed to Europe for the summer festivals, but are now back in North America for a headline trek with special guests Arch Enemy, At The Gates, and Grand Magus. Given that all the bands on this bill are Swedish, many people were aptly dubbing this tour as The Swedish Invasion.
| Opening the night was Grand Magus. It was the band's first time in North America. To have your first North American tour be with a band as big as Amon Amarth and to be playing the size venues that they're playing on this tour, I can imagine that being both really exciting and maybe a little daunting. As far as their set goes, the musicianship was on point, and their sound was more in the vein of classic metal. However, the energy seemed to be lacking a bit. After Grand Magus, it was time for At The Gates. This is when the energy doubled, or even tripled. Given that the Erlandsson brothers: Daniel and Adrian were on tour together with their respective bands, they did what any pair of brothers would do, and they shared a drum kit. Tomas Lindberg was on point with his vocals, and the guitar tones were crushing and clear. Two thirds of their set was focused on the last two albums: At War With Reality and To Drink From The Night Itself, with songs like "The Colours Of The Beast", "Heroes & Tombs", "Death & The Labyrinth" and "The Night Eternal". However, they also delivered a handful of classics from Slaughter Of The Soul, like the title track, "Cold" and "Blinded By Fear". | AT THE GATES Photo credit: Rob Botten / (C) 2019 www.metalmasterkingdom.com |
| ARCH ENEMY Photo credit: Rob Botten / (C) 2019 www.metalmasterkingdom.com | Up next were Arch Enemy. It was my third time seeing them after seeing them co-headline with Kreator and Trivium on two separate occasions. Alissa always manages to captivate a crowd with her aggressive commanding vocals and stage presence. The harmonies between Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis were just as captivating as Alissa's stage presence. A majority of their set featured songs from War Eternal and Will To Power, which were "The World Is Yours", "War Eternal", "The Eagle Flies Alone", "First Day In Hell" and "As The Pages Burn", but they also managed to include a small handful of old favourites like "My Apocalypse", "Ravenous" and "Nemesis". It was now time for the main event: Amon Amarth. A portion of Iron Maiden's "Run To The Hills" played on the P.A. to warm up the crowd before the lights went out. They kicked off the viking party with "Raven's Flight", followed by a trip back in time with "Runes To My Memory". On this tour, they continue to bring out the huge stage set that they had since the Jomsviking tour with the staircases, the giant viking helmet drum riser, and the actors dressed as viking warriors. |
| The band treated us to new tracks from Berserker like "Fafner's Gold", "Crack The Sky" and "Shield Wall". We also got tracks from the recent years like "First Kill", "Raise Your Horns", "The Way Of Vikings" and "Deceiver Of The Gods", and also old favourites like "Guardians Of Asgaard", "The Pursuit Of Vikings" and "Twilight Of The Thunder God". It was during the latter that an inflatable prop of the Jormungandr serpent appeared on stage, and Johan Hegg pretended to battle it using Thor's hammer. It was an awesome moment, that even the ladies behind the bar took a quick pause from serving customers to capture the moment on their phones. As usual, Amon Amarth delivered in spades, but many complained about their set being a little on the short side. Usually, the band play 18 songs, but their set on this tour only consisted of 12. It's mainly because there was four bands on the bill, and that Rebel has an 11 PM curfew. If they had only two bands supporting, they could've included about 5 or 6 more songs in their set. I will agree on the fact that it's usually a little weird to see a band that normally plays 18 songs on a headline set, shorten their set down to 12 songs, but when you take the logistics into consideration, it's understandable. | AMON AMARTH Photo credit: Rob Botten / (C) 2019 www.metalmasterkingdom.com |
| AMON AMARTH Johan Hegg - Vocals Olavi Mikkonen - Lead guitars Johan Soderberg - Rhythm guitars Ted Lundstrom - Bass Jocke Wallgren - Drums Label: Metal Blade Records Website: www.amonamarth.com | ARCH ENEMY Alissa White-Gluz - Vocals Michael Amott - Guitars Jeff Loomis - Bass Daniel Erlandsson - Drums Sharlee D'Angelo - Bass Label: Century Media Records Website: www.archenemy.net |
| AT THE GATES Tomas Lindberg - Vocals Adrian Erlandsson - Drums Jonas Bjorler - Bass Martin Larsson - Rhythm guitars Jonas Stalhammar - Lead guitars Label: Century Media Records Website: www.atthegates.se | GRAND MAGUS Janne "JB" Christoffersson - Lead vocals & guitars Mats "Fox" Skinner - Bass & backing vocals Ludwig "Ludde" Witt - Drums Label: Nuclear Blast Records Website: www.grandmagus.com www.facebook.com/grandmagusofficial www.twitter.com/grandmagus |
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