After the first round of awards had been handed out it was time to bring on the band that both Lunah (Lauridsen) and I was waiting for, actually the very band for which we had travelled all the way to London for in the first place!
Yes, you’ve got it; Amon Amarth.

We had had some discussions on the way over as we tried to guess which (and how many) songs they would play, and as it turned out we got two songs which had been in the discussion and one complete outsider which proved very effective.
Amon Amarth started out with the title track of their latest album Twilight Of The Thunder God, and already from the start they had the room in their hand.
A problem occurred as Olavi Mikkonen’s guitar couldn’t be heard in the start, but this little mistake was quickly corrected and forgotten.

Amon Amarth performed just as we are used to seeing them, very intense and brutal, and the show spawned the first crowd-surfers I saw this night (a bit surprising to see crowd-surfers for this kind of event I thought).
The only negative to mention was that it was all too short a set. I know they only got 15 minutes like the rest, but somehow it didn’t feel like they put them all to use. Maybe it was me, who knows?
The biggest positive came in the outsider track I mentioned earlier, which was Live For The Kill. As the cellos started (pre-recorded again, just as on Sweden Rock Festival), the lights went down low in the room and the band turned their backs on us, standing immobile for the duration of the passage and then returned with full power as their part started again. I would love for this song to become a more or less permanent part of their live-set, and to see a guest appearance where Apocalyptica themselves came on and played their part, that would probably go directly into the annals of time as the best concert ever.
Who knows, maybe it will happen one day…

As they finished up, they treated the crowd to a lot of plectres and drumsticks before leaving.
However, this was not the last we saw of Amon Amarth this evening. They were back later on to pick up the award for Best Breakthrough Act (about bloody time they got one if you ask me).

Setlist:

Twilight Of The Thunder God
Live For The Kill
The Pursuit Of Vikings