For the second week in a row, I found myself driving down to Omaha on a Thursday night to catch a metal concert with my wife, who is getting more and more interested. Things have come a long ways since she was falling asleep during the Opeth and Overkill concerts. This concert was headlined by Trivium, a band that I loved when I was in law school. I will say that I was more interested in seeing Huntress than Trivium, and I had not heard Sabaton before. I have liked some of Trivium's stuff after The Crusade, but I did not check out their two most recent albums at all. Huntress's album made it into my Top 5 of 2013, but again, I have not checked out their more recent output.
Huntress was the first to take the stage and they did sound excellent. Jill Janus's voice was in top form for the most part, other than when she was doing screaching vocals. It was the guitar work of Eli Santana that was the most impressive aspect of the band's show. Huntress did play "I Want to Fuck You to Death", which was one of their best songs off of Starbound Beast. I was not aware that Lemmy Kilmister helped write the song before last night. Janus told the story of wanting to have the venerable Motorhead singer co-write a song with her and he presented the lyrics to this song. Huntress plays classic-sounding pure metal and Janus's vocal range is awesome. It was a great way to start off what would be a great night of metal.
I have apparently missed out on something with Sabaton. They had a huge fanbase present at the show. As I mentioned, I had not heard Sabaton before, as power metal has never been one of my particular favorite subgenres. But they blew the roof off. Emboldened by some terrific fan response, they were energetic and charismatic on stage and played some damn catchy songs. Sabaton was definitely the highlight of the night, and it is not very often that a supporting band can really say that. I will definitely be checking out some of the band's discography. My wife was also very impressed with Sabaton, which is surprising, to say the least.
Finally, Trivium took the stage. I am much more familiar with their catalog than the other two bands and recognized most of the songs they played. And they played most of the songs that I expected. Their setlist encompassed their entire output, even one song off of their very first album. Trivium is usually at their best when they are avoiding the harsh vocals of their past, and thankfully they only played a couple of those songs. The dueling guitar attack of Cory Beaulieu and Matt Heafy is definitely the band's strength and took center stage last night as well. I was a little surprised that Trivium played "In Waves" as their encore, instead of the tailor-made for an encore "Anthem (We are the Fire)".
All in all, last night was a lot of fun for the both of us. I was pleasantly surprised by Trivium's show, but Sabaton were definitely the highlight of the night.
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