After getting rocked by the full show of the support band Profane Omen this day, I was in a great mood for some Viking action in the guise of Amon Amarth.
Judging from the Stockholm gig the day before though, I wasn’t fully confident they would live up to the bar set by their warm-up act...

The well-filled, though surprisingly not sold out, Brewhouse was ready to give its love to the wrathful Norsemen though, and it was only to join the shouting and the good atmosphere, which was topping what we had seen in the capitol even before the band came on! Yup, Gothenburg has always been my kind of town, and even the mighty Johan Hegg had to concede that even though Stockholm may be the capitol of Sweden, Gothenburg is still the capitol of heavy metal! Actually, he was so glad for the support, he was often seen smiling in a way that made him resemble a big teddy bear...
It wasn’t just in Hegg that this transformation could be seen either, the rest of the band was also clearly affected by the atmosphere in the concert hall. Olavi Mikkonen was still at it as he had been the day before, where he had been the highlight of the performance, but now he was getting stiff competition from his band-mates. Fredrik Andersson looked alive and focused behind his drumkit, and apart from looking generally bad-ass, Ted Lundström and Johan Söderberg got into some fun power-posing action in Slaves Of Fear, something which they revisited a few times throughout the rest of the gig as well.
Hegg also displayed some new thinking in the comments he was saying in between the songs; for one thing he dedicated Free Will Sacrifice to Profane Omen (take it as you will), and whether or not we here at Metalmoments should take the introduction to The Beheading Of A King personally I will leave unsaid, but what happened was that Hegg asked if there were any Danes in the room. We of course gladly shouted our reply, after which Hegg noted that there were only two (what a surprise), and followed with the comment; ”Sorry, but this next song is about Danes... who DIE!”
Well, the rest of the crowd laughed out loud at this, and honestly, I couldn’t stop a big smile from breaking out as well...

In general though, the crowd was really good here in Gothenburg.
For instance, there was one guy who constantly guessed the next song up to a point where Hegg had to ask him if he had a setlist on him or something.
Song ways the two crowd favourites were The Pursuit Of Vikings and Guardians Of Asgaard, closely followed by Twilight Of The Thunder God and Death In Fire, all of which had impressive sing along’s, some intended and some not so much.
Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of at these choice cuts, but my favourite was still The Beheading Of A King, as this one is a much rarer guest in the live setlist, and still works great.
As the setlist was the same as the day before, the set was mainly dominated by songs from Surtur Rising, but I can’t say I understand all of their choices here. I mean, as they wanted an epic portion of the set, as demonstrated by Under The Northern Star, why not play a song like The Last Stand Of Frej, or possibly Doom Over Dead Man? And if I had my way, there would also be an A Beast Am I snuck in there somewhere...

But who cares about such minor details when the band had pulled themselves together in such a way, and delivered a stellar performance?
It won’t go down as the best ever Amon Amarth, the competition is too hard for that, but it was certainly a delight so see and hear them as they really went far across the edge of the stage and the whole room was filled with a great atmosphere where we were swept back to a time and place where men were hairy and big, and the axe and hammer reigned supreme... Simply put, this was the way an Amon Amarth show should go down!
Oh, and a special thanks should go out to the people at Brewhouse, who unlike the crew at Göta Källare, let the party come to a natural end and thus gave us the chance to hear the bands outro music, a sort of hillbilly rendition of Twilight Of The Thunder God which was simply delightful to hear.

Setlist:

War Of The Gods
Runes To My Memory
Destroyer Of The Universe
Live Without Regrets
The Pursuit Of Vikings
For Victory Or Death
The Beheading Of A King
Slaves Of Fear
The Fate Of Norns
Where Is Your God?
Under The Northern Star
Free Will Sacrifice
Cry Of The Black Bird
Death In Fire
Twilight Of The Thunder God
Guardians Of Asgaard