First off they should have titled this tour An Evening Of Savage Death Metal - Be Prepared To Lose Your Eardrums rather than Annihilation Of The Wicked Tour but whatever works. I was not really too large of a fan of the first three bands With Passion, Decapitated and Raging Speedhorn so I arrived late. However my friend went early and said that Raging Speedhorn totally blew donkey balls and Decapitated totally ruled. Neither band is really my cup of tea though.
First up for me was Soilent Green. They put on a good show. The singer, Ben, was very crowd interactive, constantly talking and eventually he ended up in the pit during the last song. I found this action to be very cool, I absolutely love it when bands get off their high horse and interact with the people. But a certain crazy ass from Ohio kind of fucked this up even more (R.I.P. Dime). I was not very familiar with their work on the whole but from what I heard, I enjoyed. I thought the overall sound could have been better but the band can?t control that. Oh, I almost forgot about the savage guitar playing. I don?t know the name of him but the one that was on the left was shredding like it was nobody?s business.
Next up was Hypocrisy!!!! This band was the reason I was attending the concert. I have seen them once before when they opened for Dimmu Borgir which was an excellent performance so I had high expectations. I was anything but let down. They played a great setlist. They even played my two favorite Hypocrisy songs, Fractured Millennium and Fire In The Sky. Those two songs are were well worth the evening, but then they throw in Erased and finished with Let The Knife Do The Talking!!!! Are you fucking kidding me?!?!? That is my favorite song off their new album Virus. Overall their performance was absolutely stunning and I welcome them back to my neck of the woods any day.
Hypocrisy Setlist:
01. Warpath
02. Erased
03. Fire In The Sky
04.Scrutinized
05. Carved Up
06. Fractured Millenium
07. Impotent God
08. Roswell 47
09. Let The Knife Do The Talking
Finally Nile came on stage. Now with Nile I kind of have to be in the mood for them. It is not like Power Metal for me where I absolutely love it and can listen to it every day, all day. On this particular evening I was about half and half. They played some great songs and not some so great ones. The sound guy must have fixed something because Nile and Hypocrisy sounded miles better than Soilent Green. I particularly liked Masturbating The War God and Black Seeds Of Vengeance, the latter being almost entirely guitar solos, which was awesome. One of Karl Sander?s guitars looked like a weapon rather than a guitar. The head of the guitar came to point and looked like a spearhead with some red paint on it to look like blood. Now that?s fucking METAL. Also I have to congratulate them on how well they performed for being too sick to do an interview with me. There were two things missing from the set, first being Ramses, Bringer Of War and I really wanted to see a drum solo from their new drummer because he is absolutely insane. Anyway good job guys.
Nile Setlist:
01. The Blessed Dead
02. Execration Text
03. Serpent Headed Mask
04.User Matt Re
05. Masterbating the War God
06. Kheftin Asar Butchiu
07. Sarcophagus
08. Cast Down the Heretic
09. Sacrifice Unto Sebek
10. Annihilation of the Wicked
11. Black Seeds of Vengeance
12. Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten