From the Finnish backwoods of Finntroll we moved straight over and into the Brazilian rainforest of Sepultura – would the aggressive thrashers be able to beat the fun-loving humppa squad?

“It is such a privilege to play at such a great festival!”
- Andreas Kisser (guitar)

There are a lot of anniversaries going round nowadays, and Sepultura could this year celebrate 30 years of band activity, although it sounded surprisingly much like Kisser said only 20 years. Well, one of us was mistaken, and I won’t delve further into who it was, but I will mention that this meant they wanted to play a lot of old stuff for us.
So, said and done, Sepultura kicked the show off with The Vatican, and the first half was mainly Derrick Green era songs, whereas the second half was solely pre-Green if you will (the lines were a bit blurry in the beginning). I suppose this was to enable the band to go out with a bang for the old-school fans that still have a hard time adjusting.
The one thing I had a hard time adjusting to was the fact that Green had gone voluntarily bald since the last time we saw the band – gone were the impressively long dreadlocks and in their place was a thick, greying beard. Well, a little bit below their place of course, but you know what I mean.
Still, his persona was as powerful as ever, and the band chugged on through their set with enough muscle to keep things going, but without ever really pushing their limits.

Old-school fans or not, there was a fairly large crowd gathered in front of the Helvíti stage, and the mosh was on almost from the start of the show.
There was also a healthy dose of crowd-surfing, and when we reached the second part of the set the sing along sections were not to be contained – one must say that Sepultura got a good response for their efforts, that’s for sure! Maybe more response than they deserved.
You see, what cannot be escaped was the fact that Sepultura were playing it safe. The going through the motions performance, the incredibly predictable setlist, it all reeked a little too much of a band not wanting to piss anyone off by doing something unexpected. Hey, I’m not going to say I don’t also enjoy screaming my lungs out to Territory, Refuse/Resist and Roots Bloody Roots, but somehow it has been done already, and I could do with a shaking of the bag, just to see what might fall out.

I’m not going to pretend I didn’t like the gig either, I sung as badly as the next man for sure and had more of a blast the longer it lasted, but for this to really take off and become truly memorable I think Sepultura would have been better served playing on a smaller stage and handing us more unexpected songs from their extensive career – the Chico Science cover Da Lama Ao Caos (in which Kisser sang and Green helped out with the drumming) was a fun addition, and we could definitely handle more songs we haven’t already heard a gazillion times before, regardless of whether they be old or new.

Setlist:

The Vatican
Kairos
Propaganda
Manipulation Of Tragedy
Convicted In Life
Dusted
Spectrum
Da Lama Ao Caos (Chico Science & Nação Zumbi cover)
Inner Self
Territory
Arise
Refuse/Resist
Ratamahatta
Roots Bloody Roots