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An Evening With Dimmu Borgir

19.6.2012 Luxembourg

There are gigs that you simply shouldn´t miss and when Dimmu Borgir invite to an evening with them, that´s one of those for sure. „An Evening With Dimmu Borgir“ that means no support bands, only Dimmu, two hours long!

Even though the concert was in the middle of the week, the Club of the Rockhal was nicely filled with lots of fans waiting eagerly for the start of the gig, however, you might´ve expected more people to come. There was a Black Label Society gig in another city though and that might´ve caused some people to miss the gig at the Rockhal. It was great to see a gig with only one band for once. Not the usual huge package with about five bands, where you could be sure that the biggest part of the audience wasn´t really that much into the support bands, but was mainly waiting for the main act.

The evening was divided into two parts with about 10 mins pause inbetween. The Norwegians actually started a bit later, letting the audience wait about fifteen minutes longer until finally the Intro could be heard. They kicked off right away with „Mourning Palace“ and „Spellbound by the Devil“. While the start couldn´t have been any better musicwise, the audience didn´t react quite as cheerfully as you might´ve expected it, but this got better as the gig went on. The audience in Luxemburg isn´t the easiest anyways, when it comes to singing along or going crazy. The band continued playing the „Enthrone Darkness Triumphant“ album from 1997 in its entirety, of course including the great „Raabjørn Speiler Draugheimens Skodde“ which was also to be found already on their debut album from 1994: „For All Tid“. With this first part of the gig the band was celebrating the 15th anniversary of the album, that made them known worldwide. No surprises during the first part of the show when it came to the songs being played. The band was obviously in great mood, with especially Galder making funny faces as usual and communicating with the audience. Fronter Shagrath was also quite talkative, making sure that the audience wasn´t falling back into being passive. The only thing that didn´t want to fit that well was the light – you of course don´t expect bright colours for such a gig, but the light wasn´t that atmospheric either. Only during the second part this should get better as well.

After a pause of about 10 minutes, the band was back with stuff from 2000 onwards. Shagrath was now wearing another stage costume – still not the pretty awesome looking new coat that could be seen on other live pictures, but optically more exciting than the plain black shirt – but that just on the margin. They started with the raging Norwegian „Vredesbyrd“ and the epic „Kings of the Carnival Creation“ from the „Puritanical“ album. After that it was time for 3 songs from the latest record „Abrahadabra“. This album sticks out for sure and it not like the albums before, yet at the same time it fitted well into the setlist. The band however seemed to be aware that people weren´t that eager to hear the very latest stuff. Despite this however, the reactions on „Dimmu Borgir“, „The Ritualist“ and „Gateways“ were great. The evening was slowly coming to an end with three more songs.

„Progenies of the Great Apocalypse“ was an epic end to this really nice evening. Fans of course were still screaming for more and I wouldn´t have minded either to hear some more stuff like „Hybrid Stigmata“ and the like.

You might want to discuss whether they are still Black Metal or how much Black Metal is still left and so on, but whatever those guys are playing, even those complaining, that they are not that much Black Metal anymore, can´t deny, that the Norwegians know how to put on an entertaining show and are great at mixing Black Metal elements with Symphonic parts. However and that has to be said, I have seen the Norwegians with better gigs. The idea for this evening was great, you couldn´t complain about the songs, but there this special something missing.

Whatever was missing, I´m sure the guys will be back and make up for that next year, when they will be back with a big tour celebrating their 20th anniversary as Shagrath announced at the end of the show before leaving stage.

Intro
Mourning Palace
Spellbound (By The Devil)
In Death´s Embrace
Relinquishment of Spirit and Flesh
The Night Masquerade
Tormentor of Christian Souls
Master of Disharmony
Prudence´s Fall
A Succubus in Rapture
Raabjørn Speiler Draugheimens Skodde
—-
Vredesbyrd Deathcul
Kings of the Carnival Creation
Dimmu Borgir
Ritualist
Gateways
Puritania
The Serpentine Offering
Progenies of the Great Apocalypse

Cornelia Wickel

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