Hypocrisy

Gruenspan, Hamburg - 2022

Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen

At the end of a quadruple all-star line-up event, consisting of Horizon Ignited, The Agonist, and Septicflesh, Hypocrisy was set to headline the evening.
It’d been a while since we last saw the band, even longer since we’d seen them headline, and it’d been a long time since we visited Hamburg as well, so naturally, we had to go!
After an eventful and delightful day, we finally managed to install ourselves at Gruenspan, a venue we’d never visited before, but located close to Große Freiheit and Reeperbahn. It was a beautiful hall, and we were all fired up for the show.

“This is why we’re here, to put a smile on your face and make you have a good time!”
- Peter Tägtgren (vocals/guitar)


The show kicked off with a taped AC/DC song, Rock N Roll Train. It’s never been a favourite of ours, but it soon changed into the band really kicking the show off with their own first song, Worship, and by then we all knew we were in for something big. The hall was melting, and the moshpit split the floor in two.
The band on their side was as tight as anyone could have hoped for, and crushed one song after the other. Peter Tägtgren didn’t spend much time talking the crowd up, instead he let the music speak pretty much for itself, and that worked remarkably well. The floor was, as mentioned, all warmed up from the previous bands, and they absolutely blasted their way through the final set of the night.

I was especially pleased to hear that Hypocrisy didn’t just go for the same old song, as it were, with the setlist. Sure, there were plenty of staples to keep the momentum going, and I was happy for every single one of them, but sometimes it’s nice to be taken by surprise as well. Looking away from the obvious new songs, I don’t remember ever hearing Mind Corruption live before, and Inferior Devoties isn’t exactly a song that has plagued the shows lately either, to name a few.
17 songs in all, was what the band managed to squeeze in, and that’s highly acceptable for a long night such as this. It might have been a bit too long for some, or maybe Hypocrisy just wasn’t everyone’s highlight; regardless, the floor was surprisingly emptying slowly towards the second half of the gig. There were still a lot of people around to wreak havoc, and to their credit, the action didn’t lessen one bit, even though the number of participants did.

“We thank you, we love you, and we wanna see you soon! Stay safe, ok!”
- Tägtgren (vocals/guitar)


For our part, we were very much agreeing that this was the best Hypocrisy show we’ve seen in a good many years. The performance, the energy, the presence - all this and more made for an absolutely unforgettable night, and Hypocrisy left no doubt in our minds as to why they were headlining this tour.

Setlist:

Rock N Roll Train (AC/DC song)
Worship
Fire In The Sky
Mind Corruption
Eraser
Inferior Devoties
Chemical Whore
Until The End
Don’t Judge Me
End Of Disclosure
Weed Out The Weak
Children Of The Gray
War-Path
The Final Chapter
Fractured Millennium
Impotent God
Adjusting The Sun
The Gathering
Roswell 47

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