Children of Bodom crushed Vancouver. After several years from their last performance, the Finnish melodic death metal band came to celebrate their 20-year anniversary of their first album. The 2 opening bands Carach Angren and Lost Society brought a spectacular headbanging bash for all sorts of metalheads.
Lost Society, Finnish Thrash metal new boys in town kicked off the show- it was the first time Lost Society played in Canada and Vancouver. Thrash metal is always well received among metalheads and these guys where no exception, from the moment the band started playing till the end mosh pits, headbanging and kids stage diving ensued. I was personally impressed by the way Lost Society managed the audience, their hard-hitting fast riffs and long hair amazed the audience.
After Lost Society finished playing they left the stage with chants of “one more song”. Hopefully the band returns they are one of the best and most promising bands of the new wave of Thrash metal. Next up, Carach Angren, a band that has played in Vancouver countless times, a band I’ve seen at least twice. Never ceases to amaze, these guys whether they are headliners or backing up another band always play a top-level show. Their production level has increased proportionally since the last time I saw them open for Rotting Christ last year; they’ve added a mechanical arm to the piano and they had a skeletons body attached to the microphone stand. Pretty unique.
Seregor’s stage presence with his majestic blazer, corpse paint, and Victorian style of theatre, was a plus of the night. At one-point Seregor came on stage and sang with a mask and crown on his head. It was probably the creepiest moment of the night, but man do I love black metal at its raw and crude, kind of feels like your dying when you listen to these guys.
I’ve seen Children Of Bodom twice; a week before at ‘Ozzfest meets Knotfest’, they played for about 35 minutes, and 7 years ago, a show that frankly did not go well, filled with electrical issues and horrible sound quality, I was very happy to attend this show to say the least. The guys went on stage celebrating 20 years of the inception of the band, they were playing old songs from their first 4 albums, the golden age of Children Of Bodom. At the beginning of the setlist songs from Follow the Reaper and Something the Wild came on, classics like “Hate Me” and “Lake Bodom” got everyone thrashing about. Mid section of the show they played songs from Hate Crew Death Roll and Hatebreeder, the almost sold out Commodore had everyone jumping up and down. Janne Wirman and Alexi Laiho have always maintained a great relationship, launching jokes at each other and Janne making sure Alexi didn’t play any song he wasn’t supposed to.
Now even though Children Of Bodom didn’t play any of their ultra well-known classics such as “Are You Dead Yet” or “Angels Don’t Kill’, having such and extensive and impressive setlist they came out with older classics for more hardcore fans, we would hear songs like “Kissing the Shadows”, “Downfall” and “Children Of Bodom”. Regardless, Bodom still played one of their most recognizable songs, “Every Time I Die”. Alexi Laiho can still play guitar beyond super human ability, I was hypnotized the entire show at how well he played.
The band closed the show after an encore from the crowd, playing 2 more songs, then giving their thanks to the Canadian crowd, hopefully they’ll come back and I’ll be the first to go.
In all, this band may not be the dangerous raging alcoholics from 10 years ago, but man can these guys still kill the stage, I’d recommend Children Of Bodom, Lost society and Carach Angren to anyone.
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written by Emilio Angel