Billed as the “Klash of the Titans”, metal heavyweights Kreator and In Flames stormed upon the capital on a Thursday night. I was not sure what to expect in terms of the crowd as Canberra crowds can be quite variable, though there was a solid turnout of headbangers at the University of Canberra.
Kreator was first to take the stage, kicking off with “Hate Über Alles”, backed by a huge head and skeletons hanging in mutilated positions. While the band kicked off the set with all the hallmarks of their thrash sound, the crowd took a little longer to show their enthusiasm.
Seeing the advertising, I had expected Kreator to be the final act on the bill, though it seems the bands are switching who goes on first each night.
As the band ripped through “Satan is Real”, “Hordes of Chaos”, “666 – World Divided” and more, Mille Petrozza showed his years of experience, orchestrating the crowd to create a wall of death here, a circle pit there. When he demanded crowdsurfers, none were forthcoming.
Like me, many of the crowd are not quite as young as they used to be. There was a notable absence of youthful fans in the crowd. As the set went on the circle pits got bigger, and the fists pumped higher as the guitarists prowled the stage, switching sides throughout. Drummer Jürgen Reil blasted away at the pack and finished the set covered in sweat.
Towards the end of the set, they raised the “Flag of Hate” before ripping into the song of the same name. As the set ended, the band members raised their guitars in the air, while the crowd raised their horns in appreciation.
After a fairly long break, In Flames took the stage. Both bands had huge lighting productions, with In Flames backed by lighting cannons that fired various colours and patterns throughout the set.
With the crowd having warmed up throughout the Kreator set, there was no holding back and heads were banging, fists pumping from the first note. The Swedes played a varied set, setting aside much of the middle portion to older tracks.
While Kreator had demanded crowdsurfers and not received any, In Flames didn’t ask, but had people riding over the top of the crowd throughout their set. A few fist pumps in time with the last chords of “Cloud Connected” looked to me like a sign that In Flames had the points for the “Klash” on this night.
Anders Fridén seemed to enjoy bantering with the crowd as they worked through songs from across their discography. In Flames do not have as much clean singing as some of their Swedish melodeath contemporaries, but there was a strong management of the switch between snarls and melodic parts.
Björn Gelotte and ex-Megadeth man Chris Broderick traded guitar duels throughout the set. Broderick’s onstage strut brought some of that American style to one of Sweden’s classic bands.
After a run of older tracks, they returned to the newer material, coming back to “State of Slow Decay”, which borrows a little too heavily from “Slaughter of the Soul” for my liking. My highlight was “I Am Above”, which had much of the crowd taking over the singing duties for various parts of the song.
In the end, the real winners were the metalheads of Canberra and surrounds. In years gone by, there would be no way a tour like this would stop in the nation’s capital. There’s been a great increase in international heavy shows coming to Canberra recently and it will be great to see more of it.
Review by Daniel Boyle
