On the second night of their Long Time, No Death... tour, Hypocrisy visited the Columbia Club in Berlin.
A place completely new to me, but I liked it nonetheless, and thought the way the floor was built in stages where every few meters back it lifted a few inches compared to the part before, which basically meant you would have a pretty good view of the stage no matter where you were in the room.
The stage wasn’t quite as big as the one they had played on the other night, so I did notice a few changes in the decor. The two large Hypocrisy crosses were missing for one thing, or so I thought until I noticed they had put one of them right behind Reidar ‘Horgh’ Horghagen and his drumkit.
Another thing again involved the drums actually; I noticed the pair of stylish custom bass-drum skins displaying the cover artwork from the A Taste Of Extreme Divinity album. Admittedly, they had probably been there the day before as well, but I didn’t notice them until now…

Anyway, on to the important bit; namely the show!
Already as the intro was done, and the first notes of Valley Of The Damned rolled out I was blown away; the sound was just about a hundred-thousand times better than in Hamburg (give or take)! What had held true for the support group Survivors Zero also held true for Hypocrisy; Columbia Club delivered a pure audible delight.
Because of this, the crowd, which had grown somewhat since the aforementioned support played, was able to get directly into the set, even though they once again started out with two new. The headbanging was wild from the get-go, a mosh started up in time with Adjusting The Sun, and when Fire In The Sky came on the crowd-surfers started rolling by.

“Next up is a little love song...”
Although this was only the second night of the tour, it didn’t mean Peter Tägtgren couldn’t mess up the setlist a bit.

“...this is Killing Art!”
(this was said straight after finishing Killing Art)
“Oh sorry, I meant Let The Knife Do The Talking!”
(stopped by bandmates Mikael Hedlund and Tomas ‘Elof’ Elofsson)
“Huh? Oh, I guess we’re not doing that one yet. Let’s try this one instead, A Coming Race!”
Back on track, they delivered a kick ass show, although later Tägtgren did humbly ask if he could do the love song, and waited for an approving nod and smile from Hedlund before doing anything else...

While the crowd was working the floor hard, the band was also delivering more this day up from the stage, and even though it was smaller in size both Hedlund and live guitarist Elofsson (also known from Sanctification, God Among Insects, Proserphine, Divine Desecration and Those Who Bring The Torture) moved about frequently and freely, which of course added a bit more life and variation than had they just held their places throughout.
I know with myself that I was much more compelled to bang along to this great set than I had been last night. The sound really did quite a difference; my favourite part of the was the medley with Apocalypse and The Fourth Dimension, and these songs let Tägtgren show of his vocal capabilities ranging from deep guttural growls to his characteristic high-pitched shrieks, while drums, guitars and bass lay down the foundation in perfect unison...

As you, dear reader, might have guessed, I was completely wild about this show; it was so much better than anything I had hoped for! The only part which I could see improving from here on would be if they took a little more time to say farewell after the concert. But hey, this is such a minor part; the important part is what they do while still playing, and this was done excellently.

Setlist:

Valley Of The Damned
Hang Him High
Fractured Millennium
Adjusting The Sun
Eraser
Pleasure Of Molestation / Osculum Obscenum / Penetralia
Apocalypse / The Fourth Dimension
Killing Art
A Coming Race
Let The Knife Do The Talking
Weed Out The Weak
Fire In The Sky
Roswell 47
Warpath
The Final Chapter