After the magic that was Moonspell at Wacken this year, it is only safe to say that we were still quite high on the opium smoking lycanthropes.
What could be better then, than visiting two shows on the Into Darkness tour, on which they played alongside Pain, Swallow The Sun, Lake Of Tears and Scar Of The Sun? Three maybe, but the world is in an economical crisis after all, and so we had to limit ourselves…

The first show we were to see took place in Markthalle, Hamburg, one of the favourites out of all the venues we have visited around Europe so far, so the aim was set for epic (even though that’s an incredibly over-used term by now).
As the band members took their places before the first song, anticipation reached its peak, which got a great release as Fernando Ribeiro proudly marched onto the stage with his gladiator helmet on, grabbing his mic-stand with the two large Moonspell symbols (one attached to the stand, second embedded in the foot), and began bellowing out the vocals for Axis Mundi.
After this, the band moved on to the title track of the new album, Alpha Noir, and we could see the players getting more into character the further they went. Miguel Gaspar was sweating and beating away on his drums, and apart from Ribeiro who was the most lively man on stage, Aires Pereira (bas) and Ricardo ‘Morning Blade’ Amorim also did a bit of walking around (not quite as actively as I have seen especially Pereira earlier though), whereas Pedro Paixao was inexplicably tied to his keyboards at this time in the show.

The crowd was, which again had grown a lot in numbers after taking a dive while Swallow The Sun was playing, wasn’t very physically active except for the mandatory headbangers in the front at this time, but they were very much into the show anyway, something which was blatantly noticeable with the roaring cheers and applause they were giving the band between songs.
Of course, the response had to be roaring for it to reach the men on stage; you see, the volume of the music had been turned quite a lot up for Moonspell compared to the earlier bands, and while I don’t usually have anything against loud volumes except in the cases where it affects the sound negatively, this wasn’t a good thing, mostly because it did just that. Affect the sound in a bad way that is.
You see, it was turned up in a way which the speakers couldn’t handle which gave it that scratchy, over-distorted effect you get when the speakers have been blown out (they weren’t, because they sounded well again when Pain played later in the evening), and this took an especially bad toll on Ribeiro’s vocals I’m sad to say...

Still, the fact that they were there, and the rather retrospective set they had put together, this being the bands 20th anniversary year and all, garnered the band a lot of respect from the concert goers. Already in Opium it became ridiculously apparent which band was a crowd favourite here (and on a side-note I must mention that it was a brilliant way they had combined this song with Awake!), and through Wolfshade (A Werewolf Masquerade) to the finishing Full Moon Madness it only became wilder. The fact that Paixao donned a guitar for Lickanthrope and instantly began making up for lack of movement before only served to further the excitement. I can’t recall seeing this particular man so positive and active at a show before, and it was a delight!

As you can imagine, I was well entertained by Moonspell’s performance in Hamburg, and seldom have you seen an hour pass so quickly by.
Was it as magical as it had been at Wacken? No, but I hadn’t imagined that it would, as that show had been so unique in its ways; it was however, a very, very good Moonspell show, and I was looking forward to seeing them again in two days time.

Setlist:

Axis Mundi
Alpha Noir
Opium
Awake!
Wolfshade (A Werewolf Masquerade)
Lickanthrope
Em Nome Do Medo
Vampiria
Alma Mater
Full Moon Madness