Avatar

KB18, Copenhagen - 2013

Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen

Avatar was the main act of tonight’s show on their co-headline tour with Engel.
Both Engel and Smash Into Pieces, their joint support band, had performed admirably and it was time for Avatar to show that they could round up the evening in a convincing way.
Just as with Smash Into Pieces, Avatar was a new name to me by whom I had only heard a single song before, but from that it seemed they would fit in nicely on the tour…

“We are Avatar from Gothenburg, and we come in peace.”
- Johannes Michael Gustaf Eckerström (vocals)


Just as the other two, Avatar is a Swedish band, hailing more precisely from the Gothenburg area in 2001.
Since then they have released four full-length albums, and have had quite a revolving door in the line-up department, retaining only drummer John Alfredsson and guitarist Jonas ‘Kungen’ Jarlsby from that early era. Part of the rest of the present line-up, Johannes Michael Gustaf Eckerström (vocals) and Henrik Sandelin (bass) joined in 2003, and has thus still been present on all of the bands releases even though they are technically not founding members. That just leaves Tim Öhrström (guitar), who joined the rest in 2012
That’s a bit of trivia for you, but basically irrelevant info regarding the show at hand, so let’s get back on track…

“Copenhagen, no excuses, no evasions, just adrenalin and blood!”
- Eckerström (vocals)


Avatar had just about the same groundbreakingly large audience as Engel had played for, i.e. about 15 people, and this was what the evening had to offer. As I mentioned in the earlier reviews, this was most likely due to bad timing from the bookers side – on the same night we had one metal festival going on at one place in the city, and a large pre-party for another metal festival at another location in Copenhagen. Not the best opportunity to put on a show with some, in Denmark at least, little known bands…
Whereas both of the earlier bands had come up on stage, noticed the low attendance, and thought “fuck it” then winged it for fun, Avatar seemed to run much more on the routine of their show, not really noticing whether they were playing for 15 or 1500 people.
The set started out with Let Us Die, also opener of the latest album, Black Waltz, and it saw Eckerström in a tightly buttoned up, thick leather coat, black gloves and boots, and with a black leather bag over his head with rectangular holes cut out for his eyes and mouth (this must have had him sweating profoundly because even though we weren’t that many, we still kept the place warm enough), and we saw the rest of the band in worn black leather and denim, and far too much eye-liner for their own good.
I was impressed that Eckerström didn’t feel an immediate need to shed his costume, but kept it up until the change between the second and third song, where he finally unbuttoned his coat and lost the bag – not that it necessarily felt like an improvement though, as all it was hiding was an immensely sweaty face with a very runny clown make-up (the same style he wears on the latest album), and underneath the coat a sweaty wife-beater and a pair of red suspenders. He was at this point also wearing a hat, something you would imagine on a reporter from the 50ies would use. After a few more songs, the coat was completely gone…

All this only paints a vivid picture of the look of the guys, and says nothing about how they played and performed, and well, this is mainly because with Avatar I got the sensation that the visual appearance was the part the band had spent the most time on perfecting – it was very much like watching a shock rock group like Alice Cooper or Marilyn Manson, but without adding anything new, and only taking the imagery along from them, whereas the music was left behind somewhere on a dirty, dusty country road.
There was a performance though, but it felt very theatrical (in a bad way) and staged, as if nothing came from the heart, but only several hours of rehearsing… Eckerström was especially bad at this even though he was also one of the liveliest on stage, and the whole thing with drinking (water I guess) from a gasoline tank just felt silly.
The only real feeling I got came from Öhrström and Jarlsby, who even though they tried a little bit too hard with the attitude were excellent posers and actually looked like they were having fun from time to time. Sandelin felt a bit anonymous to me, and Alfredsson suffered from the same problem all of the nights drummers had had, which was sitting hidden in relative darkness.

“Even though Sweden and Denmark holds the world record of being at war with each other, we hope for peace…”
- Eckerström (vocals)


Well, there certainly wasn’t anyone acting violently in the audience at KB18 this night, in fact the few who had turned up actually seemed to enjoy themselves!
Of course, the bar had been easily accessible the entire evening and beer had flown relatively freely so the atmosphere was high, and even though we were low in numbers, both the volume of the applause and the wildness of the headbanging told a clear tale of Northern brotherhood instead of animosity between the old warrior nations.
Even though the people around me looked like they had a great time though, I can’t say that I ever got really worked up over Avatar. Ok, I was impressed, no actually more befuddled come to think of it, to see Eckerström change outfit once again for the last song of the evening, Queen Of Blades, where he came out looking like a cardinal, God knows why, and I actually liked that they took the time to take a proper bow before leaving the stage.
Apart from that, I am sorry to say that compared to Engel and Smash Into Pieces, Avatar felt like a waste of time and the only mark they left on the evening was that of an anticlimax.

Setlist:

Let Us Die
Blod
Torn Apart
Ready For The Ride
Black Waltz
Let It Burn
All Which Is Black
Paint Me Red
Smells Like A Freakshow
Queen Of Blades

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