Behemoth was the band to bring a final, satanic touch to an evening of full-grown wickedness at Amager Bio, after their co-headlining tour with Cradle Of Filth had summoned them there.

Just as with Cradle Of Filth, there is a certain element of theatrics to the Behemoth show, although not nearly as outspoken and also in a far less sexual nature as the Polish band focus more on the spiritual and biblical imagery.
Thus a hooded Adam ‘Nergal’ Darski took centre stage with a fire stick in each hand, standing behind his serpent microphone which was further adorned with candles and incense sticks. Live guitarist Patryk Dominik ‘Seth’ Sztyber and the huge, lumbering Tomasz ‘Orion’ Wróblewski stood also hooded on either side of the drums where Zbigniew Robert ‘Inferno’ Promiński sat royally and awaited the beginning of the show.
This came with the new track Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel, and already at this point we could see that Behemoth wasn’t about to hold anything back – the music was loud, the band was aggressive and smoke was cannoned from the front stage, smoke that in upcoming tracks would be interchanged with fire. Lots of fire. Lots and lots of it.
Behemoth was definitely delivering the show with the most muscle, as it were. They were heavier, more aggressive and more determined than any of the others, leaving us without doubt as to why they deserved a headlining spot. While this was what initially swept me of my feet, it was in part also the downfall of the show – variation seemed to be something that had been left in the dressing room, and when the initial shock of the relentless attack had been absorbed the rest of the show just didn’t have the same punch to it. I was hoping for some more dynamics, some counterpart to the heavy blows that would just with its contrast just how heavy they really were, but it never came.

The powerhouse performance had one clear advantage though, and that was on the crowd.
It had been pretty packed all evening, but Behemoth clearly pulled the most people in to the hall, and they were the first who managed something beyond shouts and applause – a small moshpit finally took form in the middle of the hall at one point a crowd surfer even came sailing by. To his luck, it wasn’t in a period where the pyro show was active as well.
Even without the mood changes I was hoping for, Behemoth also managed to vary their show. Sonically, Orion got to take over on vocals on several points, more than I remember seeing in the past, and visually they had all of the pyrotechnics on the one hand, the elaborate stage setup (the two sometimes combined, like with the large burning crosses), and finally there were the changing costumes. Orion and Seth let their robes fall early on, but Nergal kept his on a bit longer; when he finally did release it, a necklace of chicken feet was revealed beneath. For the encore, the band also donned masks – the black, shiny, horned masks used in the Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel video.

One could say that all hell had finally broken free, but one could also say that it wasn’t as scary as it was built up to be.
Oh, Behemoth delivered, don’t doubt it for a minute, but as had been the trouble with Cradle Of Filth, the show went on for just a bit too long, and towards the end it was hard keeping concentrated. This was good, really good in fact, but it was neither the best Behemoth gig I’ve seen, nor the best gig of the evening in Amager Bio.

Setlist:

Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel
Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer
Conquer All
Decade Of Therion
As Above So Below
Slaves Shall Serve
Christians To The Lions
Hidden In A Fog
The Satanist
Ov Fire And The Void
Furor Divinus
Alas, Lord Is Upon Me
At The Left Hand Ov God
Chant For Eschaton 2000
O Father O Satan O Sun!