To begin I would like to say that I had extremely high expectations coming into this, but not for any of the opening bands just for the one the only DIMMU BORGIR. I had seen them about 3 years ago or so and the time in between was far, far too long. While I had some interest in the opening bands it was a very little amount since I am constantly let down by tours with great headliners and average to below average openers.

KATAKLYSM was opening the evening and I think I had only heard one song by them and it was around 3 or 4 years ago. I had thought they were a lot more on the Death Metal side of things, but I was wrong. KATAKLYSM had a much more combination of Death, Thrash, and Black than what I could have expected. They are easily one of the biggest surprises I have come across in years. Though I couldn?t tell you a song name, but I can tell you that they got a very good crowd response as well a having a shit load of energy.

Unfortunately, I had to sit through DEVILDRIVER again like I did a few years ago. Although on the upside they were better this time than they were last time. I just find them to be so overly generic that it is ridiculous.

Yet again another generic Metalcore band that gets on a tour with phenomenal headliner. I had just seen UNEARTH a few months ago when they opened for SLAYER (read the report here). They played pretty much the same set as they did before or what I could tell since most of their stuff sounds very much the same. Highlight of their set was Gene Hogland (ex-DEATH, SYL) was playing drums due to firing of their drummer recently.

At long last it was time for the minions of Satan to take the stage and totally decimate the venue. The set began with Progenies of the Apocalypse, which was a great song to open the set with; however I would have preferred to hear The Serpentine Offering first. They played a very interesting set list where I as really only familiar with a few of the songs such as Indoctrination and The Insight and The Catharsis as well as the newer songs The Serpentine Offering and The Chosen Legacy. I will also say that Vortex's voice was absolutely stellar. I think he has one of the most superior sounding voices in all of Metal due to the overall epic-ness of it; Hellhammer's solo was pretty sweet, too. The entire set was awesome even though I couldn?t get into the set as much due to the choices, but they were certainly not bad choices. Something I couldn?t put my finger on was missing from their set and I was standing thinking waiting for the encore it dawned on me as the intro started SPELLBOUND!!!! How could I forget one of my favorite songs, and they totally nailed it and I must say Beelzebub would be proud. Then they followed it up with my favorite DIMMU BORGIR song Mourning Palace; just hearing the encore made it worth waiting through the lesser bands of the evening. I also look forward to seeing KATAKLYSM again since they were a pleasant surprise.

Set List:

Progenies of the Great Apocalyspe
Vredesbyrd
Cataclysm Children
Kings of the Carnival Creation
Sorgens Kammer
Indoctrination
A Succubus in Rapture
The Serpentine Offering
Drum Solo
The Chosen Legacy
The Insight and The Catharsis

Spellbound
Mourning Palace
The Fallen Arises- Outro