For three years the State of Unrest tour of Lamb of God and Blind Guardian had been postponed. Originally planned for 14.03.2020 in Hamburg the concert has been rescheduled seven times in total until this finally happened. We haven't been holding on to our tickets since 2020, we only bought them in September 2022, but many loyal fans were there yesterday, who had been waiting for the whole three years and the atmosphere was awesome.
My first concert in 2023, again in the edel-optics.de-Arena in Hamburg Wilhelmsburg where we went to see Blind Guardian in October 2022. This time there were a lot more people in the audience. With Blind Guardian only the arena was open, for Kreator people were also on the first and second balcony.
Opening was Municipal Waste and by the time we got there they had nearly finished their set. Admission took a lot longer than expected. Municipal Waste is a crossover thrash band from Richmond, Virgina. They had the first circle pit going when they left the stage. We stood on the second balcony as I wanted to get a feel for the crowd first, but when Lamb of God started their set, I needed to go down to the arena. As soon as Randy Blythe started with the opener Memento Mori and screamed Wake Up! the crowd was bouncing and headbanging and there was no way I would miss this energy.
Memento Mori was a great start and for me undoubtedly the best song of the set. Closely followed by Walk With Me In Hell and Resurrection Man. Randy Blythe has an insane energy on the stage, he is bouncing up and down and strutting around like a wind-up toy and it is impossible not to get get caught up in that. There was a lot of crowd surfing, mainly done by one and the same guy who must have run past me five times. Unfortunately the sound was not great. The instruments sounded fine, but Randy often kind of got lost, he was hard to understand. Really too bad.
Don't ask me how, but I actually managed to get into the front row and LoG drummer Art Cruz came down to the security pit and took the time to shake hands and take pictures with all the fans. I might have died a little here. I am such a fangirl. This totally made my evening. Just look at me pleased as punch 🖤.
Kreator started playing just a little before 8 PM. I managed to shuffle a bit more to the center, but my view was imparied due to the impailed demon to the right of the stage. Kreator started strong with Hate Über Alles and it was so great to see and hear them play live. Kreator were the first band last year that helped me overcome my fear and suspicion of thrash metal. Mille Petrozza got me into thrash metal, Gods of Violence was one of my absolute favourite albums last year. So of course I was more than happy to hear Hail to the Hordes and Satan Is Real performed live yesterday. I would have hoped to hear Totalitarian Terror and if it were for me they could have played this song instead of Midnight Sun. Sofia Portanet was live on stage for this song and I did not really dig that performance.
Enemy of God, Phobia, Hordes of Chaos, Strongest of the Strong were further highlights and even 666 - World Divided was great to sing along to. The first Wall of Death was initiated in the third song already and the circle pit was never gone throughout the gig. Mille encouraged it several times. And as scared as I am to be caught up in one, I love watching it from a safe distance!
Mille and the guys played absolutely great, the sound had been fixed and you could hear everything properly. Mille addressed the audience frequently and had the crowd going. Sami Yli-Sirniö played with Finnish reservation and Fred Leclercq was busting with energy. I had so much fun watching him. But I gotta say - even though I did not see him before the band said goodnight - Jürgen Reil totally slayed it last night. Hearing him play, thrashing his drumkit non-stop, just blasting on withough a fucking break, was my absolute highlight of the evening. He is by far one of my favourite drummers and hearing him live yesterday was an absolute treat.
The last song was Pleasure to Kill from the eponymous 1986 album, Kreator bowed and left the stage and the audience went home exuberantly. When we left the arena around 10 PM we found it snowing and it was a suprising and beautiful walk back to the car.
Next concert will be The 69 Eyes on March 27th, a whole different thing, but I am so looking forward to it. I will keep you posted.
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