Now, if Turmion Kätilöt came off as a little bit less entertaining this day than what they had been in Hamburg, the exact opposite could be said about Engel, who were also supporting Pain on this tour.

”We’re Engel, we’re here to play, that’s what we like to do!”
- Magnus ’Mangan’ Klavborn (vocals)

Lido came off as a little bit smaller than Markthalle, but on the other hand came crowd came off as much larger than the one that had visited Engel at the aforementioned concert-hall, yet still they had to fight for some attention in the beginning. Not with a baseball bat (which was not present at all at this show), but with raw power. Something the band obviously had plenty to give out of.
Engel also seemed a little bit more focused this time around, but without losing the all-important aggressiveness with makes the music flow all the better. There was really only one thing which bothered me, and it was that Klavborn had some problems getting through the high-pitched clean parts in some songs, especially so Trial And Error, and this took some of the enjoyment out of it, but not enough so to pull the overall atmosphere down...
Ok, that was a little lie, Klavborn’s vocal misses was not the only thing bothersome here at Lido, the sound didn’t really d the band justice either, with the drums overshadowing all of the other instrumentation in a most annoying way for much of the gig. On the other hand, if I only learned not to stand in the middle of the frontline I know this problem would disappear, as this is the (possibly) worst position to be in at a concert, from a sound-o-philiac’s point of view at least; it has its upsides though, like being completely in your face close to the band and getting the maximum impact of their feelings shot through you instead. This was clearly working for drummer Jimmy Olausson tonight, as he came off as very energetic and wild to look at. Steve Drennan and (especially) Marcus Sunesson were really working hard on their metal posing tonight, but it was Olausson who hit me as the one most into it at this show.

As mentioned above, the largest body of the crowd wasn’t really letting Engel in, or at least in the beginning. Of course there were a few with me in the frontline who obviously knew the songs from before, and were happy to headbang along, but looking only a couple or so rows back, people were standing completely still or calmly nodding their heads at the most.
This was to change during the course of the gig though, and even though it never turned really wild out there, Engel got more and more of the type of response they were actually working so hard for this night. I’m sure Klavborn’s good contact with the crowd between songs helped out some; he didn’t say much really, but what little he did open his mouth for was well placed and helped the atmosphere along nicely. Not that I have any doubts about the effect of the music by itself, but at a live concert like this it is always nice to feel appreciated and noticed by the band, and this in turn paid off in ways of louder shouts and longer applause between songs.
This did not mean that there was time for the planned encore song sadly, but as Engel had changed around in their setlist, the only song we missed out on, Propaganda, was a song they had already played for us at an earlier event. This is what makes travelling with the tour so interesting, and when the venues are not further away from each other than the distance between Hamburg and Berlin, I must admit I can’t understand why more people don’t do it.

If anything, this night really reminded me and confirmed my belief in how cool this band actually is from all those times in the beginning when I came late for their shows. That will hopefully never happen again, this is something you’ll want to suck as much out of as possible.

Setlist:

Until Eternity Ends
Casket Closing
Trial And Error
For Those Who Will Resist
Scythe
Six Feet Deep
Burn
Sense The Fire
In Splendour