Children Of Bodom’s show at Metaltown didn’t start off too well, as they began playing a massive 20 minutes before schedule.
Let me tell you, there were A LOT of people (including me) who were in a hurry to reach the stage in time!

Luckily, they didn’t reach too far into the opening Needled 24/7 before we got there.
The crowd was enormous, as it was for most of the day, and it seemed all was prepared to take a dose of razor-sharp Finnish extreme metal.
That the massive response was well received by the band was clear for all to see; they might have had a more barren stage-setup than usual, but the energy and the will to kill was all there! Especially Alexi ‘Wildchild’ Laiho was completely lit as he was spraying spit and curse-words over the audience with a big old smile on his face, but the rest of the band wasn’t far behind him.

Even though the set held no great surprises, and the sound wasn’t all that good, it was still enough to make people jump so hard the harbour began to give way, just as it had done for Trivium earlier.
And just because the set held no surprises, there was no reason for the band not to; or so it would seem on Janne ‘Warman’ Wirman, who contributed with a short cover of Europe’s classic The Final Countdown which was used as a start of Deadnight Warrior. Not surprisingly, this was an instant megahit with the Swedish fans.
Wirman also contributed with a dedication to Michael Jackson by playing the opening bars of Billy Jean, but stopped short when he was unable to get Laiho to play along. Strange, considering that Laiho have agreed to sing both Britney Spears and Rihanna covers in the past...
The concert was ended with a great sing-along, nearly karaoke as Laiho’s voice was hard to hear over the audience, in the classic crowd-pleaser Hate Crew Deathroll.

This was the first concert of the festival which hit with me, mostly due to the bands apparent vitality and joy to play. Henkka ‘Blacksmith’ Seppälä has later commented that this was, in his opinion, the best show they have ever played in Sweden.

Setlist (incomplete):

Needled 24/7
Bodom Beach Terror
Hate Me!
Blooddrunk
Children Of Decadence
Hellhounds On My Trail
Angels Don’t Kill
Deadnight Warrior
Hate Crew Deathroll