So, we arrived at the headliner of the second day at Metalfest, and not only was this Swedish/German conglomerate a headliner, but they had also gone out and promised that this would be a sort of release party for their new album, Khaos Legions, as well as an entirely new stage-show!
Interested? I know we were...

The first thing to look at as we arrived was of course the aforementioned new stage-show; this was comprised of a couple of flags bearing the Arch Enemy logo, two painted screens showcasing the cover artwork of the album, and two (not very) large video-screens hanging on the back wall of the stage. Nothing to get overly excited about in other words, but maybe there would be more to come?
The band started out with a couple of new tracks, the instrumental opener Khaos Overture (over the speakers only) and the following Yesterday Is Dead And Gone, which to me sounded just like everything they’ve released so far. Great for the fans I suppose, but didn’t really mean a hell of a lot to me… We did get to see the screens in action though, as Yesterday Is Dead And Gone was played pretty well in sync with its accompanying video.
The band had decided not to leave the revolutionary theme quite yet, and pulled the 4 years old Revolution Begins out of the bag, again played more or less in sync with the video. After this followed a long set of songs, most of which I can’t name as I’m not much into the band, but a few recognizable choruses popped up from time to time.

Arch Enemy proved to be the first and last band of the entire Metalfest line-up to have rain dripping down during their show, but even here it was hardly noteworthy. Still, it did make me give up my place in the front for something to warm up on in the back of the grounds. On my way there, I not only noticed how many were present at this show (and they were many), but also how fabulously popular the bands new official merchandise was, one item in particular; a new white armband sporting the band-logo in black. This was also worn by the band-members themselves (they have on earlier occasions been known to wear blank red or white armbands).
But armbands only go so far in showing your support of a band, and this crowd was definitely prepared to take it further than that; fired up by Angela Gossow’s speeches, which were all in German so I understood squat of them, this turned out to once again be one wild bunch of people. Possibly after recharging their batteries at the Saxon show, people were once again ready to jump, mosh and crowd-surf their way through the night.

I on the other hand felt a bit left behind, as I always do at Arch Enemy shows, and even though they performed rather well this night, their song material is uninteresting enough to put me completely off. That’s just how I feel about this band.
And no, nothing extra happened in the stage show either…

Setlist (incomplete):

Khaos Overture
Yesterday Is Dead And Gone
Revolution Begins
Ravenous
Nemesis