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Events and Reports - Sabaton - Live with Grail Knights at Ivory Blacks, Glasgow - November 4th 2008
Having thoroughly enjoyed Sabaton when they steamrolled into town last year for one of the gigs of 2007 I was rather excited when I heard that they were returning for another assault on Glasgow.
I had also caught them at Sweden Rock this year (read my report here) and they yet again excelled at putting on one hell of a show. Sadly since they were playing the fairly small Ivory Blacks venue there was no room for pyro this time round.
Having polished off several pints in the Solid Rock Café, Craig, Del and myself headed over to the venue. We arrived to catch the last 10 minutes of local band Concept of Time. I had hoped to avoid them completely as I've seen them play more times than I care to remember. They always seem to bag reasonably impressive supporting slots and fair play to them. But their brand of lumpen, keyboard driven Prog/Power leaves me utterly cold.
Needless to say we had hit the bar for another round of drinks during Concept then headed up towards the font of the stage for the main support band Grail Knights. I hadn't heard of them before but Craig promised me that if nothing else they would be a laugh to watch.
He wasn't wrong on that point, after a incredibly long wait ( Ivory Blacks have a bad habit of delaying soundchecks to keep people in the venue as long as possible) and another round of beers, the band hit the stage dressed in full super hero costumes. They proceeded to turn in a fun half hour of Melodic Death with a large dash of Power metal.
Despite the limitations of playing on a pretty small stage they went to a bit of effort to put on a show. They had a large banner at each side of the stage with a painting of Castle Greyskull from the He-Man cartoon (though to fit in with their act and probably to avoid getting sued they had changed the name to Castle Grailskull). They also had a couple of guys dressed as evil trolls who lurked about the stage and even ventured into the audience at points. The crowning highlight was when a pantomime horse appeared on stage with an 8-pack of Carlsberg and went on its merry way handing them out to the audience. Obviously I made sure that I put my place in the 2nd row to good use and grabbed one. Mmmmmm, free beer..
All the wacky costumes and stage banter would have been for naught if the music wasn't up to scratch. Luckily the band blended several different influences together well and gave their audience (or their "Battlechoir" as they dubbed us) plenty of opportunity to join in the fun with a generous helping of crowd participation. Definitely a band I need to check out further.
After another epic wait, (Damn you Ivory Blacks!!), it was finally time for the main event. By this point I had polished off around 7-8 pints plus the can of Carlsberg so when Sabaton exploded onstage with the deadly one-two of Ghost Division and The Art Of War from their newest album I was raring to go.
The band were on top form and launched off classic after classic from their back catalogue (Though nothing off Metalizer sadly). The sound was pretty clear which allowed for everything from Joakim's gruff but ideal vocals to the leads of guitarist's Rikard and Oskar.
The crowd were also in fine shape as despite not being the biggest mob they will play to on tour (I'd estimate maybe 100-150 people) we must have been the loudest. Every lyric to every song was sung loud and proud and I lost count of the amount of times the chant of "SA-BA-TON, SA-BA-TON" was started.
Sabaton always seem to get a good reaction wherever they play but especially in Scotland. In fact at one point, Joakim (or Jocky as I'm now calling him) informed us that Scotland is the 3rd best place to play in the entire world. With only Poland and Israel ahead of us.
Most of the time when you hear that from a frontman you take it with a pinch of salt as you know they are probably going to say the same thing in Manchester or wherever on the next night of the tour. But Sabaton seemed 100% genuine and rather moved by the rapturous reception they received. They certainly responded accordingly, putting their all into the performance.
The set was heavy with tracks from The Art Of War but I had no issue with this as since the album has been out for a while now the audience greeted them all like old favourites. Plus they played my two favourites from the album, 40-1 and the rather fantastic Price Of A Mile so I couldn't complain.
When Jocky announced that the next song was about his penis I got rather carried away and let loose a cheer as I new what was coming next (please feel free to insert your own sexual innuendo here).This prompted him to ask me just how I knew it was about his penis.
Lets just say I'm just hoping I never find out as they then fired into the 8 minute epic Rise Of Evil. I've loved this song ever since I heard it for the first time at the gig last year. It's a beast of a track with an intense chorus which comes into its own in the live setting.
Towards the end of the gig I managed to grab a space at the barrier just in time for Wolfpack from Primo Victoria. Soon after this the band asked us to go crazy and launched into Primo Victoria itself. The song got the biggest response of the night with pretty much the entire crowd jumping along to the keyboard led melody.
The gig was finished triumphantly with a medley of Metal Machine and Metal Crue. It's a neat idea as both songs are similar in sound and lyrical theme and work well together. All in all an excellent evening spent with one of the most enjoyable live metal bands around at the moment. Hopefully they can make a trip to Glasgow an annual occurrence, come on lads, you know you want to!
| | Written by Stuart
Monday, November 10, 2008 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Steen (Staff) - Monday, November 10, 2008 | 
View Profile
Comments: 518 | | Sounds like a great night, pantomime horse and everything. Sabaton is always an energized experience. Great band. It'll be interesting to see how many mini tanks the Rise of Evil spawns...
Posted by Steen (Staff)
Monday, November 10, 2008 |
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