After their hugely successful concert at Copenhell last year, Kreator was back for the attack, and they had new ammo in their weapons. Among others, they had a brand new album out, Krushers Of The World.
This was the last show of their tour this time around, so now it was time to leave this world behind…

“We’ve been recording music since 1985, and we’ve been playing in Copenhagen since 1986. Maybe some of you were there back then? And some of you are new. Either way, it feels fucking great to see you all here!”
- Miland ‘Mille’ Petrozza (vocals/guitar)

As they have done for a while, the show opened with a curtain covering the stage. This time it was a little bit different though, as the curtain was blank white, and to the sound of P.F. Sloan’s anti war song Eve Of Destruction in Barry McGuire’s version, we saw human history unfold in a constant, neverending bloodbath. If that’s not a fitting intro to a Kreator show, I don’t know what is.
Kreator themselves followed this up with the speedy Seven Serpents from the aforementioned new album, where we were shown silhouettes of them backlit onto the curtain as they played the slow intro, only to have the curtain fall and reveal a human abattoir of a stage as the song kicked into hypergear.
This being only three quarters or so of a year after the Copenhell concert, maybe it wasn’t so strange that the two setlists resembled each other as much as they did, with the obvious exception of the added new songs. Still, what worked wonders at a festival left us wanting something a little more original when it came to the band’s own headlining tour.

Still, these are songs that work on a crowd, that’s been proven over and again, and backed with Kreator’s effect-filled show, you’re not exactly going wrong here. The many fans in Poolen was ready for the early wall of death as the band once more played a snippet of Coma Of Souls as an intro for Enemy Of God, as the band shot out a thick cloud of confetti that ended up hanging in long lines from the ceiling installations. While it did remove a huge part of the show’s visual presentation, maybe for this very reason it was a good thing that Kreator wasn’t allowed to use any pyrotechnics here in Copenhagen?
Smoke and confetti were still a large part of the visual expression, as were the intermissions with the two hooded figures coming out during the taped intro’s to the songs that used that kind of foreplay. Hell, during Loyal To The Grave we even got a bit of a musician’s mixer, as Fréderíc Leclercq took over on guitar while Petrozza got to wear huge wings on his back.

Fire or not, the crowd was obviously loving every second of this show, as was evident by their wild response. Several walls of death throughout, interspersed with huge circlepits, many crowdsurfers, and a good deal of good old moshing as well, that was the menu of the day, and Copenhagen was delivering on all of it. Kreator did announce that they would be filming bits of the show for an upcoming video, which they did, but even without this incentive, the crowd was clearly ready to give it their all. The three excellent shows already played this evening had done nothing to the level of energy here, which was impressive to behold.

Kreator on their side were a little more laid back. Leclercq was grooving and going all over the stage, whereas Petrozza, Sami Yli-Sirniö, and Jürgen ‘Ventor’ Reil were holding back a bit more. They didn’t lack energy, but it all felt a bit rehearsed, lacking a truly present connection. That’s one of the downsides of having such an effects-filled show I guess, but they had pulled it off in style at Copenhell last year, so why not now?

This is a very minor gripe however, as Kreator delivered a good and entertaining show throughout their time on stage. Maybe the only real problem here was that they were up against such stiff competition from all their support bands, who had gone all out with their performances. Kreator was good, maybe even above standard, but sadly they fell short of the amazing shows we had seen earlier in the evening.

Setlist:

Run To The Hills (Iron Maiden song)
Eve Of Destruction (P.F. Sloan song)
Seven Serpents
Hail To The Hordes
Enemy Of God (w. Coma Of Souls snippet)
Satanic Anarchy
Sergio Corbucci Is Dead
hate Über Alles
People Of The Lie
Betrayer
Krushers Of The World
Hordes Of Chaos (A Necrologue For The Elite)
Satan Is Real
Loyal To The Grave
Mars Mantra
Phantom Antichrist
Endless Pain
666 - World Divided
The Patriarch
Violent Revolution
Pleasure To Kill
Apocalypticon