It is the last day of the Easter Holiday, it is 1pm the sun is high in the sky and I am standing on the side of the motorway in my home town Limeira, it is like 33c I am burning like a lost soul in hell and there is no more beer to cool me down, a friend is coming from another town nearby to pick me up and then we are off to our destination 150kms from here, Sao Paulo city where we have a meeting with HYPOCRISY .

My expectations were very high, the last time I had the chance to see HYPOCRISY was in 2000 in Tilburg in The Netherlands and they were pretty good, also it would be the first time that I would finally have the chance to see Brazilian maniacs TORTURE SQUAD. After a long trip to Sao Paulo all because the traffic was huge all the Christians returning home from the holidays it took us four hours, nevertheless we arrived at the venue on good moods and a beer to chill us down, the crowd was already gathering outside hundreds of maniacs wearing black and pretty girls wearing tight clothes, a very nice first impression indeed.
 

So it is almost seven o'clock and the house is almost full and time has come to open the gates of hell and TORTURE SQUAD are in charge of that mission, these Brazilians heroes came to the  scene in 1993 hailing from Sao Paulo city and they play a mix of Death and Thrash Metal and are known for always delivering  a powerful and tidy performance, having  recorded seven albums, "Shivering" 1998, "Asylum Of Shadows" 1999, "The Unholy Spell 2001, "Pandemonium" 2003, "Hellbound" 2008, "Aequilibrium" 2010 and "Esquadrao De Tortura" 2013 and despite all the changes in formation that  the band have gone through they have started out as four piece band and later on in 2012 they lost their main lead singer Vitor Rodrigues who went on and formed VOODO PRIEST.

After Vitor's departure the band decided to remain a three piece band and sometimes you have to take decisions and I do think they did the right thing, perhaps in the beginning it was a bit strange to see them without the former singer but I can assure you that  guitarist Andre Evaristo is doing a damn good job on vocals as well as Castor who also helps with the vocals and destroy the bass too and the remaining job is delivered by the mighty  Amilcar Christofaro on drums and the onslaught began with "No Escape From Hell" from the latest album followed by a shoot in the head "Pull The Trigger", and the crowd was having a very good time, TORTURE SQUAD definitely have a big squad of fans in the country, for me personally was a very good performance with lots of energy and charisma and professionalism I am not surprised they are well recognized worldwide and they closed the set with "Horror And Torture". A great performance from these Brazilians maniacs.
 

Setlist:
1. No Escape From Hell
2. Pull The Trigger
3. Patria Livre
4. Pandemonium
5. Living For The Kill
6. Come To Torture
7. The Beast Within
8. Nothing To Declare
9. Fear To The World
10. Chaos Corporation
11. Horror And Torture
 

So it was time for HYPOCRISY at this time the crowd was already heated up and impatient and behold, the mad boys from Sweden have finally stepped on the stage and with no warning unleashed upon the crowd "End Of Disclosure" the title of their latest album and that brought the crowd on to their knees followed by "The Tale Thy Spineless" and then Peter finally greeted the fans gifted them with the classic "Fractured Millennium", by this time I knew that tonight I was going to leave the hall with a big smile on my face, after seeing them in 2000 in Tilburg I had huge expectations and they fulfilled it at easy.

You have to give Peter and his crew huge credits and all merits, they know how to perform and at times in my eyes that looks  so easy and one has to ask how do they do it? The crowd that came tonight which by my calculations were about 950 maniacs left for home speechless because HYPOCRISY were just amazing. Most albums were covered having said that I would have liked if they played more songs from "Penetrallia", "Fourth Dimension" and "Catch 22" but that is never possible because when you have so many albums is always hard to play them all, but nevertheless I do not think that there will be anyone out there complaining about that!
 

Setlist
1. End of Disclosure
2. Tales of Thy Spineless
3. Fractured Millennium
4. Killing Art
5. The Eye
6. Valley of the Damned
7. Fire in the Sky
8. Pleasure of Molestation / Osculum Obscenum / Penetralia
9. Buried
10. Elastic Inverted Visions
11. 44 Double Zero
12. War-Path
13. The Final Chapter
14. Roswell 47
15. Adjusting the Sun
16. Eraser
 

Also congratulations to Fame Enterprises for organizing a perfect event without any flaws and also congratulations to Carioca Club, yet again a great concert with amazing sounding and everything going very smoothly. Yet again I have to say, an amazing show, for those who have missed out on this gig, shame on you!!!