Heavy metal concerts indoors is an experience every metal fan should experience once, I had seen/heard and experienced this in bits and pieces of up and coming bands. The Amon Amarth gig at Backstage Live on the 20th of January will be right up there.San Antonio is a city which is not synonymous with Tejano Music ( the happy happy stuff which is associated with big hatted mexican people - sorry for being stereotypical here ) Metal or heck Rock music in this part of the woods is something which is unheard or rare - fans of this genre flock to Austin or Dallas to get their dose of live music ! The fact that Amon Amarth was coming to town was huge!
The gig featured three bands Skeletonwitch, Enslaved and Amon Amarth - all this in a venue which is in not the most safest part of the neighborhood of the town and to be honest I expected this venue to be an outdoors venue but the fact that this was an old warehouse for a cold storage converted to an Indoor Venue made it mode dark and come to think of it apt for a real underground feel.
The gig started off with the lesser known of the three - Skeletonwitch. This was my first dekko of them and they are an Interesting Mix of thrash metal with elements of black / melodic death thrown in. They got the 200 odd folks going bonkers. the local junta gathered here (which was mostly of a college - senior school crowd knew this band, and they were growling away with the lead singer) ...
Setlist -
The Horrifying Force (The Desire to Kill)
Serpents Unleashed
I Am of Death (Hell Has Arrived)
Burned from Bone
Sacrifice for the Slaughtergod
Beyond the Permafrost
From a Cloudless Sky
Crushed Beyond Dust
Beneath Dead Leaves
Within My Blood
This was followed by the more Melodic - Enslaved who were a very different band from their predecessor. More Melodic and progressive. They Kicked off their gig with Death in the Eyes of Dawn followed by Ruun and their best Ethica Odini. Which was followed by RIITIIR, Allfaðr Oðinn and Isa.
Amon Amarth followed Enslaved
They Kicked off their set with a Video Teaser of Father of the Wolf and he popular Deceiver of the Gods from their new album. This was succeeded by Death in Fire and Free Will Sacrifice from their older albums.
The rest of the setlist -
We Shall Destroy
Runes to My Memory
Varyags of Miklagaard
The Last Stand of Frej
Guardians of Asgaard
Blood Eagle
Warriors of the North — classic Amon Amarth from their latest album
Destroyer of the Universe
Cry of the Black Birds
War of the Gods
Encore:
Twilight of the Thunder God
The Pursuit of Vikings
What made this set list different from the other two was that Johan Hegg (their lead singer) was interactive and was giving a preview of each song in his own style and chugging beers from an ivory horn !
He was also narrating the story (Thor/Odin/Valhalla logic) to all before each song.
The crowd was lapping it all up as we had moshpits became more intense. And some were high enough to go crowd surfing to the stage ! It was a memorable gig despite the bruised ribs/sore back which still hurts while I type this entry but this made re-ignite the liking for metal and live music - which each one of us need to support.
Edit - what was intriguing was the I had a cabbie drive me back who was referring San Antonio as the "Heavy Metal Capital of the World" in the 80's which I was really not sure of but did a bit of research and I am getting some pretty interesting reads ... http://2fast2die.com/2012/07/joe-anthony-the-spirit-of-san-antonio-radio/
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