I remember that when I got up in the morning of the 22^nd, it was a sunny Saturday, however I felt a tingling all over my body, it took me over two cups of coffee to understand why. It was the day of the live show of ICED EARTH, for the first time here. It took me some time to remember when was the last time I was so excited about a show that I'm going to see in my country, I think that the last time was back on DIO's show in 2005. I was amazed that I got the same excitement as before, so I did all my shit all day with a voice in my mind telling me that god dammit you are going to see ICED EARTH today live.
 

An hour before the gates were opened I reached to my closet and took out my old faithfull trusted jacket, a veteran piece of leather that traveled around live shows worldwide, and headed up to the venue. Though at first I thought not, but I had to comment regarding the minor production issue. Reaching at the venue at the time indicated on the poster, I realized that the doors were not open and the box office was not open for me to grab my ticket. It took an hour waiting with an army of black masses outside the arena till the box-office opened. The line was long even though every time that the door of Reading 3 opened you could hear the sound of guitar riffing, indicating that the bands are lining up for the Metal storm, possibly still in their sound check, so that the cause of the delay was due to that factor after all. So hour and half later I entered into the arena and took my place.
 

First up were the band named PROWLERS. I heard lots of good things about this band; they mainly play tribute shows to IRON MAIDEN, playing classic songs. According to people I talked to in the arena they do IRON MAIDEN pretty good, however this time PROWLERS rose up to the occasion to play some original material, which will be a part of their debut album.  Without the ability to comprehend how these guys are playing MAIDEN songs, I can safely say that they stormed the stage with old school Metal thunder, JUDAS PRIEST meets IRON MAIDEN kind of Metal. I think that the first thing that I noticed about them was there lead singer Yochai Davidoff 's voice, he is good and when I say good I mean very good, he is a Bruce Dickenson mockup made well. I can't tell you anything about the songs because this is the first time they do them on stage, yet they sounded good and started the fire in the house, really looking forward to listening to them again on stage and really looking forward to listening to their upcoming debut album.
 

After PROWLERS made their departure from the stage, come up SWITCHBLADE. SWITCHBLADE just released their debut album "Heavy Weapons" that I had the pleasure to listen prior to the show. Bare in mind that for SWITCHBLADE it's the first time in the big halls, and I will be happy to stand corrected to play on a big arena like the Reading 3 and to support a massive band like ICED EARTH. Nevertheless SWITCHBLADE delivered classic old school Metal again very similar to PROWLERS, taking their influence from bands like JUDAS PRIEST and IRON MAIDEN, even though they are influenced from the mentioned bands, they do bring something of their own to the music. Regarding the live show in hand, at first glance it seemed that the excitement of the occasion had its effect on their performance; however, in the moment that the opening song "Heavy Weapons" flared the hall, I was starting to feel the fire in me. No doubt that the best song from SWITCHBLADE was the last one named "Endless War", maybe it took them some time to get into the groove, but without a shadow of doubt that the more big live shows that SWITCHBLADE will play the more people will understand that this band is a solid band with a solid show, however only time will tell.
 

Now for the main course of the evening. As you may all know, ICED EARTH had some, and I mean some, major changes I don't want to get into a long debate regarding them, although all changes in overall are is still a beacon in the name of Jon Schaffer, best known as the guitarist and sole remaining original member of ICED EARTH. I only wanted to point it in order to salute him for his devotion, maybe the biggest change that was evident is in the vocalist position, the last change was in 2011 when Stu Block took the role from the once eternal voice of the band, Matt Barlow. On the other hand, I will not get into comparisons and will deal with the live performance of the band as is it with Block.
 

So what did we have, ICED EARTH did all they known songs without any expectations and like it should be, did it amazingly well. Reading 3 was on fire, maybe it was still on fire after the band saluted their goodbyes (didn't check though). For me Stu Block was a big surprise, and though lots can be said about his role and voice pattern as it has been known, as a big fan of ICED EARTH days with Matt Barlow, and they guy was stellar, hard to the core, bursting with intensity and flare, ruling the wicked with his vocal command, thus didn't disappoint. I didn't bother about the remarks I heard within several of the lines in the crowd, he did his part with elegance and utter brutality, charisma filed and glorious. ICED EARTH fired all guns in Reading 3 and literally almost blew the roof off with their intense wall of sound. Each classic song after another, including the thundering church bells of heaviness of "Burning Times", the brutal "My Own Savior" that made me mosh like in the old days, the awesome "Vengeance Is Mine", "Blessed You Are", destructive "The Hunter" and the heavily induced "Iced Earth" that led to an enticing end game for the show with a Heavy Metal high pitched wail. Also there was a great performance of the newer tunes like the gem emotive moments of "If I Could See You", epic "Plagues of Babylon", Speed Metal madness of "Dystopia" and the violent "Democide", that were played to perfection. I just wish they would have played "Anthem" or "Stormrider" but there is a limit to what my old heart can take.