Company: None. Flying solo. Except somehow was found by that weird aging metal dude who loves all things powermetal and decides its totally normal to wear a full face white mask the entire night. Also kept calling Skeletonwitch, SkeletonSwitch. The options were push him off the balcony or head to the floor, I headed to the floor as I figured Will County wouldn't be fun.
Skeletonwitch: This tour's been going forever. These three bands played Chicago back in May I think and they swung through Joliet this time. Their lead singer was sick I'm pretty sure (I think something was running through all 3 bands because each band had someone who looked like they were battling through.) so it was instrumental blackened thrash.
The guys had pretty much 0 room on stage with Sabaton's drums and Amon Amarth's drums up there. The guitarists were playing through Blackstar half stacks, and I didn't see them mic'd. I'm guessing since they didn't have a singer they just skipped the PA? Not sure. They were killer though. Bassist plays a sweet Ric and did a pretty good job of being a focal point while playing some pretty tasty bass.
Crowd knew a number of the songs well enough to sing choruses which was pretty cool. They brought it as hard as they could given the circumstances.
Sabaton: Dear lord I don't like power metal. I was embarrassed for them. I think I have a picture, and if I can find my phone, I'll post it. Lead singer was really trying to channel Halford with his look and moves. Music was pretty gawdawful and hearing a bunch of Swedish dudes sing about WWI and WWII was a bit odd, but whatever, its powermetal.
Now, I have to say, they did sort of win me over. I'd prefer to never suffer through their set again, but they band had a lot of fun onstage and the lead singer made a lot of self-deprecating jokes about them so you could tell they didn't take it all too seriously. Like, they were serious about doing a good job, but not asshole serious about it.
A quote: "You can to see badass Vikings and instead you're seeing us looking like the fucking Village People. Did I just compare us to the Village People? Fuck, here's another song." So, by the end I was warmed up to them but I was also happy it was over. Their bassist is about 5'3 and I'm pretty sure he was sick. He put on a good effort but he was dragging hard by the end.
Guitarists were wireless to hidden amps. I'm guessing probably Axe-FX, they were using PodHD500x for effects so I guess they could've just been using that. One guitarist played an ESP EC version. Killer tone and chops. Other guitarist played a Strat and was probably even technically better but would get lost tonally doing lead lines. The ESP guy cut through and the Strat guy's lead lines would get lost in the gawdawful canned keyboards.
His solos sounded great though and he sounded fine on parts with no keyboards but just buried by the keys.
Bassist was jamming one of the weird angular ESP basses. It was seriously not much shorter than him. I am not joking.
The crowd loved them. It seemed there were almost as many people there for Sabaton as for Amon Amarth. It was weird. More power to the guys its just 100% not my thing in the slightest.
Amon Amarth: What's to say? They fucking tore the place down. Sound was amazing and they actually sounded better than the Waken videos I watched. It helped the one guitarist wasn't half drunk, but Johann's voice was better too. I'm still amazed how well he enunciates during his growls. Does it help I know the words? Yeah, but even my mom (who borrowed my car with an AA cd in) could tell some of what he was saying.
Guitarists were rocking explorer type guitars. Olavi looked to be playing a real Gibson while Johann was playing a black ESP Snakebyte most of the night. Apparently they're using Kempers live. It was interesting because when the guitar tech was testing the sound before hand the individual guitars sounded harsh and nasty, but in the full band mix sound godly.
The drummer is a beast, just nails the beat and what I love about the guitarists is they're having a blast. The rhythm stuff they absolutely nail. The solos typically have a few flubs from the album and Johann bailed on the "Twilight of the Thundergod" solo and took it in a totally different direction but sounded fine, I can't blame him for being tired on the first song of the encore and its 110 degrees in there and you honestly don't care because the show is just so damned good.
I think the bassist and Johann (guitarist) were battling whatever was running through the bands. They were both rocking out, but inbetween songs the bassist would go lean against the back wall and just looked beat and JS was pretty worn looking too.
Johann H gave a shoutout to Three Floyds brewing which was cool.
This is long and rambling but it was a killer show overall and totally worth the 4.5 hour round trip on a Thursday night.
