Life Of Agony was back in Copenhagen, this time by pure damn luck. How I felt about this? Well, if you’ve read my 2015 Copenhell review of Life Of Agony, you should know. You haven’t? Well, go do so now. Don’t worry, we’ll wait. Go ahead, right here.

All done? Good. Now you should know exactly what kind of insane expectations Life Of Agony were up against this night. I was excited to see the announcement, but how could they possibly overgo that last show?

Now, I said Life Of Agony was here by a stroke of luck. By that, I meant the mix-up in dates by the Aalborg Metal Festival, to which Life Of Agony was first signed – someone had read the dates wrong however, so the festival played out one month before the band had scheduled to be here. This meant that their day was now open, and Amager Bio was good enough to pick them up. They forgot to pick Pyogenesis up, who had played support for the entire tour, but that’s another story.
So, now we were in Amager Bio, the local support was finished, and the close to sold out venue was teeming with excitement for what was to come.

“Hello my Danish pastries! How the fuck are you doing?!”
- Mina Caputo (vocals)

As soon as the band had entered the stage, with loud cheering accompanying them all the way, they went straight for a classic crowd-pleaser – the title-track of the 1993 debut album, River Runs Red. Talk about a powerful way to kick things into gear!
To show that the performance could follow suit, Joey ‘Z’ Zampella was on his toes at once, constantly jumping, and Caputo straddled the security pit, having one foot on the stage and the other on the fence. A bit of shaky balance was quickly helped by the outstretched hands of the audience.
Life Of Agony kept the energy going throughout, with Zampella and Alan Robert playing up to the crowd, shaking hands, bumping knuckles, and handing out picks. Sal Abruscato was naturally stuck behind his drums, but managed a quite good eye-contact, and Caputo played the perfect hostess to this party, speaking a lot between songs, lovingly calling us her “crème tarts” and “crème puffs”. She certainly didn’t mind hanging far out from the edge of the stage, to keep a close connection with the crowd, and in those few instances where it was needed (not very often, mind you), she was quick in getting the audience to sing along. She even had time to go hug what I can only suspect to be her girlfriend, who was watching the show adoringly from the crowd, during one of the solos.

“This is the last show of the tour, so everybody take two steps up to the stage! Jump with us!”
- Alan Robert (bass)

Zampella and Robert helped out on the vocals as well, most notably in Method Of Groove of course, where they took turns on the rapped verse lines.
But the audience wasn’t far behind, filling in by themselves, or being invited to take over by Caputo – I don’t remember a single song of the night, which wasn’t aided by the crowd (myself included, of course).
Other than that, the sweaty, warm hall saw headbanging, raised fists, and also a bit of mosh action. Not as much as I had expected, but still enough to keep the wildest participants satisfied. The guards, which I don’t believe have much, or any, experience with a metal show (I haven’t seen most of these faces here before), were a bit too enthusiastic about keeping the crowd on the floor. Not rude, as far as I could tell, but a bit too quick to intervene in things that weren’t harmful to anyone – so quick in fact, that one of them got a tap on the shoulder from Caputo, telling him to let the crowd have their fun.

“Get up, get up, get up you fuckers!”
- Joey ‘Z’ Zampella (guitar)

And we did have fun, a truckload of it in fact. The show merely lasted an hour, which can certainly be seen as a bit short for a main event, but Life Of Agony managed to deliver it without sounding rushed, or making us feel cheated in the song department. Most of the set was, like last time, River Runs Red material, and then the obvious hit-picks from the rest of their discography, and with 14 songs played, together with all the rest, it was quite surprising to me that the band managed it within the tight time-frame.
Lie Of Agony may have had unbeatable odds to overcome, set by the expectations from their Copenhell concert, but I’m happy to say that even though they didn’t necessarily beat them, they sure as hell lived up to them! This was another incredible delivery, and a superb show!

Setlist:

River Runs Red
This Time
Other Side Of The River
Love To Let You Down
Method Of Groove
Respect
Weeds
Lost At 22
I Regret
Dead Speak Kindly
Through And Through
My Eyes
Bad Seed
Underground