At The Gates - Friday 22nd July

I was really curious to check the Swedish band, considered as the creator or one of the creators of the Gothenburg Melodic Death Metal. Reason for such big curiosity?

Well, in my opinion Gothenburg has brought us a lot of good stuff, and something new to the sound, to the evolution of a music style. Another thing that for me is great and almost contagious is the love the fans have for the bands. I had never had the opportunity of really being in the crowd and paying attention to one of these bands, being able to do it at an At the Gates concert was undoubtedly an amazing experience.

I´ve been to hundreds of concerts in the past years, not mentioning in my life, but recently, although I´ve seen great stuff and good crowds, I have to say that I haven´t experienced very much the passion…

Reading reviews from other journalists in several blogs and websites, whenever they write about a Gothenburg band, they talk about passion, so I just wanted to capture the feeling, as a passionate metal head and not “the journalist”.

A little before the gig I placed myself almost front stage, a little bit to the right not to be in the center, where the crowd gets usually too crazy for my heals (girls…), and oh yes, it was worth it!

And there they were, celebrating this great comeback that took place in December of 2010 (the band has broken up twice and reunited): Tomas Lindberg on vocals, Anders Bjöler, guitar, Martin Larsson, guitar, Jonas Björler on the bass and Adrian Erlandsson on the drums, giving me THE BEST gig of the entire Tuska, among the 20 I watched.

The concert started with the intro The Flames of the End, and the track Slaughter of the Soul. Lindberg, who definitely joined my list of “people I would like to have a beer with”, showed to be a very nice guy. Aggressive in the singing, but really outgoing and cool.

Cold, The Swarm, Terminal Spirit Disease and some words: “It´s very good to be back in Finland, it´s very good to be back!” And it sounded really true, the whole band seemed to be having a great time on stage, although Tomas “complained” several times about the hot weather. Actually, the guy was so wet that he seemed to have come from a shower with clothes on.

Suicide Nation, Raped by the Light of Christ and some more nice words: “thanks for keeping us alive, if it weren´t for you there wouldn´t be us”

Under a Serpent Sun, Forever Blind, Windows, World of Lies and a crazy and passionate crowd. I´ve never experienced an aggressive crowd in Finland (a real plus here) but this was the concert that I heard more screams, grunts and people jumping, moving and moshing around. So great!

Unto Others, The Burning Darkness, Nausea and “the closest to a love song we´ve ever written”: The Beautiful Wound, followed by Souls of the Evil - Departed, and Need, closing the set.

Blinded by Fear and Kingdom Gone were the encore songs and after that it was over… unfortunately…

Everything in this concert sounded so good that time passed really fast…they could have played for one hour more and nobody would have stopped moving.

At The Gates rules!

At the Gates Setlist

The Flames Of The End
Slaughter of the Soul
Cold
The Swarm
Terminal Spirit Disease
Suicide Nation
Raped By the Light of Christ
Under a Serpent Sun
Forever Blind
Windows
World of Lies
Unto Others
The Burning Darkness
Nausea
The Beautiful Wound
Souls of the Evil Departed
Need

Encore:
Blinded By Fear
Kingdom Gone

Check them out :
http://www.atthegates.se

Review & photos: Maila-Kaarina Riippa

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