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| Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
When it comes to quality furniture and theme metal, nobody beats the Swedes and Wednesday night at the Concord Pavilion saw two of the best of the latter take the stage with Ghost and Amon Amarth. While great metal music stood mighty in the forefront, theatrics, pyro, vivid lighting and amazing set design shared the stage in creating mighty escapes for the audience.
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| Amon Amarth @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Openers Amon Amarth presented their unique and entertaining brand of what they describe as “melodic death metal” in a performance centered around their Viking mythology theme. While the band has resisted the term “Viking Metal” to describe their performance – it’s easy to see why many gravitate to that description as they performed in front of a Viking helmet, Inflatable Viking statues and shared the stage with Viking warriors who even staged a sword duel. As the entire seated audience rose to their feet and engaged in rowing to “Put Your Back into the Oar,” the crowd was taken to that other time and place.
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| Johan Hegg of Amon Amarth @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Regardless of labels, Amon Amarth was captivating in concert and showed the mastery of connecting with a crowd and delivering a memorable experience their fans have come to expect from a band who has been together for the last thirty-one years. Lead singer Johan Hegg provides a large presence up front that alternates (as Swede metal singers seem to do) between intimidating as he leaned forward into aggressive, sometimes growling vocals, and joyfully humble as he sought to ensure the crowd was having a good time while providing moments of deeply genuine appreciation to fans coming out for the show. Jocke Wallgren on drums provided intense momentum throughout the set in tandem with founding bassist Ted Lundström. Fellow founder and lead guitarist Olavi Mikkonen and rhythm guitarist Johan Söderberg prowled the stage and took full advantage of frequent moments in the spotlight.
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| Amon Amarth @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
There were many highlights to Amon Amarth’s set beyond the previously mentioned “Oar.” After an opening with a powerful “Raven’s Flight,” the band delivered conquering performances of “Heidrun,” “Raise Your Horns” (featuring Hegg toasting the crowd and swigging from the large drinking horn from his side) and the finale of “Twilight of the Thunder God” that saw Hegg delivering a ceremonial giant hammer to the floor and featured a giant inflatable dragon surrounding the stage and left the crowd screaming for more. Their nearly hour-long performance not only primed the audience for the headliners but succeeded as a stand-alone performance worthy of admission on its own.
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| Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
After an intermission to change over the massive props of the night’s Viking kings, the house lights dropped and soft spotlights hit the stage-hiding curtain as an extended intro of "Imperium" played and the audience screamed in anticipation for Ghost. Many of the crowd had their faces covered with the white and black face paint look that lead singer Tobias Forge has made famous with his prosthetic mask and dozens sported costumes in the various versions of Forge’s “Papa Emeritus” stage personas.
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| Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
As the curtain dropped and the band took the stage to “Kaisarion,” the dominant energy and charisma of Forge/Papa was clearly apparent under an extremely bright spotlight. The rest of the live touring band consisted of seven to eight ‘Nameless Ghouls' – each wearing dark black steampunk costumes with large goggles for this tour that completely hid the face of each. Indeed, the Ghoul identities are kept well secret, with only former members coming forth to claim they had a place in the band. The look is spellbinding live, but makes for a bit of a difficult review in challenging how to call out individual performers. Impressively, the Ghouls managed to create strong connections with the crowd by leveraging top notch expressionism through expert movement and posture that enabled each to inhabit a distinct character and bring forth a unique persona. Though nameless and faceless, they were incredibly fun and all of the strings were given many opportunities to demonstrate their supreme mastery of guitar and bass under the spotlight. Forge frequently left the stage to remove himself from the attention and to undergo semi-frequent costume changes.
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| The bass guitarist Ghoul of Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
The band opened with the first song off their 2022 opus Impera, a song that examines both the rise and fall of an empire. Next up was “Rats” from 2018’s Prequelle which ironically focused on a world in plague just months before Covid-19 would alter all of our lives – it was delivered powerfully and led into the new album’s “Spillways” – one of five songs off the new album that were featured in the setlist. Ghost’s energy and sound were non-stop throughout the evening with Forge’s banter with the audience forming the only break in a sonic feast.
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| The guitarist Ghoul of Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
2015’s “From the Pinnacle to the Pit” featured the bassist sometime referred to as Waters delivering spine-bending notes that set a high floor of vibration for the music to lay upon. Throughout the night, the bass was featured in an elevated manner and he demonstrated his ability to set a rousing tone throughout. Additionally, his character often had terrific interactions with Forge at the front of the stage. Ghost followed that with another song from the 2015 Meliora album in "Cirice" – a song that touched both the hard and soft side of the band’s approach in what was perhaps the night’s closest thing to a love song. Delivered with spectacular red lights with their set of a church taken to the dark side with vampire tones, the song features one of Forge’s greatest lyrics:
“Can’t you see that you are lost without me?I can feel the thunder that’s breaking in your heart.
I can see through the scars inside you.”
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| Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
On this night, Forge would visit all the prior incarnations of the “Papa” character while returning to his currently titled “Papa Emeritus IV” persona. The stage and lighting were the other superstars of the night. The gigantic church look created a dramatic and yet intimate space for them to deliver a superior theatrical and musical performance. Ghost’s sound is unique and yet so familiar with elements of 80’s hair metal mixing with thrash and goth seamlessly in performance. Elements of Queensryche mixed with Queen and Whitesnake keyboards danced with Metallica guitars. The music was rich with layers that created a complex sonic stew for the audience. Celebrating the first night of their 2023 American tour, the band brought the crowd a rousing rendition of “Absolution” that was their first live performance of the song since 2020. Excellent guitar solos took the crowd even higher with Hegg asking “California – United States of America – Are you with us?!”
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| Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“Ritual” brought the first full crowd sing-along and saw the left side guitarist with the dark guitar demonstrating frequent acrobatics such as playing between his legs. The end of the song featured a comic moment as the right-side guitarist held a squealing high note until the bassist trundled over and begged for him to cut it off. If it's possible to “mug” for an audience while not allowing them to see faces, the band did just that. Another huge bass bomb was held for nearly a minute before Forge emerged in full Emeritus robes and headdress to deliver “Call Me Little Sunshine” one of the biggest highlights of the night. Songs that followed such as “He Is” which saw the entire crowd lighting up the Pavilion with cellphone flashlights held high as soft white laser lights cascaded down onto the stage.
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| The bass guitarist Ghoul of Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Ghost ran through the finish of the first set with three crushing songs delivered in quick succession. “Mary on a Cross” had the audience chanting along and Hegg wryly turning the chorus chant from “Mary on a” slowly but surely until he uttered “Just say ‘marijuana.’”. That was followed by a keyboard solo out front and huge confetti cannons on “Mommy Dust.” “Treasure what you have when you have it!” Forge exclaimed to the audience as the stage was cleared of confetti debris. “This is the first night of our tour and we are back here in the Bay Area where you have always been so hospitable since the beginning. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all for being here tonight.” The band exited the main set with the final song off the new album “Respite on the Spitalfields” as the band left the stage with the crowd cheering for more.
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| The bass guitarist Ghoul of Ghost @ the Concord Pavilion (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Forge reemerged for the encore with a sparkly blue tuxedo blazer and joked “This is my aftershow jacket and I have a table waiting for me at Fisherman’s Wharf, so you all need to go home.” Ghost delivered a three-song encore to send the crowd home happy with “Kiss the Go-Goat,” “Dance Macabre” and “Square Hammer.” It was a visually and musically arresting performance that showed none of the missed moments that sometimes can trouble the first night of the tour. Ghost was dialed in and at the end, Forge promised to return to the Bay Area after their triumphant 2023 American debut.
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