Perception Of Darkness from Sweden had the honour of opening the Dark Mental Festival here in Denmark.

Now, this can be as intimidating as it can be privileged, as the crowd can often be late in showing up and have usually not imbibed enough atmosphere (cough cough and beer cough cough) to really be in the mood to show any support.
I am happy to say that Perception Of Darkness did the only right thing there was; they grabbed us by the collar and head-butted us into action!

“Denmark, are you ready for some fun?!”
- Karl ‘Darkness’ Johansson (vocals/keyboards/electronics)

You know what they say, if the mountain doesn’t come and so on... This was taken to heart by the band, and after several unsuccessful wishes for the audience to move closer to the stage, Johansson simply jumped off the stage started messing it up on the floor instead, right in the middle of the slightly confused festival goers. But kudos to him, for it worked! Already in the next song, where he was back on stage, people began moving closer, first tentatively but as soon as some dared to move more followed behind.
It was easy to see that little by little the Copenhagen audience was warming up to these young Swedes, and as time went on, more and more clapping and shouting ensued, and by the end of it people were getting really into it!
Now it may sound as if this was a slow process, but you have to remember that they only had 30 minutes to play in, so it was quite impressive what they achieved with really nothing more than a lively performance to work with. But oh what a performance; several far more established bands could definitely learn from this.

I on my hand was definitely among the surprised ones.
When they first entered, I took them for just another black metal band, what with the corpse paint and general appearance. The only thing I couldn’t fit into this generalisation mold was Johansson’s lighted finger-tips...
Then, when the music started it made a huge clash with my initial impression. Clearly, this band has listened to a lot of Deathstars and Pain, and liked what they heard. At least, this was the type of musical universe we were presented with, and it worked like a charm to get the party started. Riffing and melodies may have been a bit by the book for this genre, but there were just enough surprises planted in the songs to keep it interesting, and the drive was not to be mistaken.
Still, it was without a doubt the performance skills which did most of the work, and even though it felt a bit rushed at times (hey, they only had 30 minutes!), this industrial goth quartet was just what was needed to shove the festival into action.
Ending the show by shouting that they loved us, and throwing free shirts out only solidified the positive atmosphere they had created.

I hope, and believe, that the band had as much fun on this their first gig outside of Sweden, as we had having them in Copenhagen. If there was only one thing I think should have gone down differently, it would have been for Perception Of Darkness to end instead with the second to last song, as this was definitely the one with the most hit potential of the bunch. Other than that, I can only congratulate on a well-played gig.