Swedish death metallers As You Drown was the first band for us this evening.
Actually one more band, Divine Chaos, was also warming up for Vader this night, but due to an unexpected lateness in our arrival we didn’t manage to see more than a “Thank you and good night!” on their part…
No matter, a Swedish death metal band couldn’t be a bad start to the evening, now could it?

No, it couldn’t.
Even though there was already a good crowd gathered (considering it being a Tuesday night, that is), it was still a far cry from sold out, and people were still hanging back whilst clinging to their beers.
It made me glad to see that As You Drown was not going to let this affect their performance however, and they started blasting one song after the other over us like a boxer punching away at his sandbag. The whole band turned out to be very lively on stage, although their youth and level of experience shone through in things like not headbanging to the same beat. At all…
Despite this, the music itself was delivered with confidence and a level of tightness which was not to be frowned upon.

“If you’ve ever thought of headbanging, this would be the time to do so!”

This was shouted by vocalist Henrik Blomqvist at the start of Driven By Hatred, in an attempt to get some more action out of the seemingly appreciative, but still rather passive crowd.
Still, no rule without an exception, eh? The exception here being a very intoxicated man in a Vader shirt who was raising hell all by himself, trying to create one-man-mosh or just doing the old windmill (yes, with his head!).
The rest of the audience warmed up to the Swedes a bit more towards the end of their show; a few more headbangers started shaking their hair, and shouts and applause could be heard after each song.

As You Drown delivered a show and music bursting with youthful energy mixed with a hint of a more mature groove at times, without ever loosing up on the brutality.
This, combined with an extremely sweet sound courtesy of The Rock and the bands own technical knowhow, made for a very enjoyable first concert of the night.