Sara Hammerzmith

So, with Raubtier being done, we now had a bit longer wait for our next band of the day – Sabaton. Yes. We pretty much drove this entire way simply to see Raubiter and Sabaton. Fucking come at me bro! We drove a 1000 miles for them, and we’d drive that again to be with them. Themesong of this trip really IS “1000 Miles” by H.E.A.T.

Anyway, enough with the jibberjabbish.

Next band to enter the stage was Nocturnal Rites. Interestingly enough, Raubtier was only meant to play for an hour, but wound up playing 75 minutes. I guess Nocturnal Rites gave up some of their setup time, or something, because they were still on time on stage.

Nocturnal Rites

So, this is another band that I may or may not have seen live before – after about 12 years of touring it’s hard to keep track on every single band you see at a festival or show. But, they delivered a very good set, very enjoyable, and the crowd had a good vibe to it – not an idiotic vibe, gladly. I really enjoyed their set!

So, after them, the wait for the last band before B-Band started and it was time for U.D.O

U.D.O

I always mix up if it’s U.D.O or Dirkschneider that is the Accept tour, but I worked out pretty quickly that this was not the Accept one. I’ve had the oppurtunity to review some of U.D.O’s albums in the past, but besides that, it’s not something I’ve been listening a lot to.

The band did do very good though – they delievered more than okay, and put a smile on my face.

There was one thing though that I noticed.

And it took me some time.

I was looking at one of the guitarists, seeing his guutar clad in the Swedish shield. Three crowns and a lion. And I didn’t get it. Why would a german guitarist have a Swedish shield guitar? But then again, why not? What do I know about this band, maybe they have it for all countries.

And I kept staring for a few good songs before it hit me. And perhaps it didn’t even hit me until I saw the other stringbenders with instruments clad in city camo paint. Then it hit me.

This was not their guitars. This was Sabaton’s guitars. And in case I hadn’t worked it, Udo himself would mention it a little bit later. I really am stupid, aren’t I?

But with that said, after a really good show they wrapped it up and it was time for us to wait for the main act.

And seriously. As the crew started assembling Sabaton’s stage, which is somewhat similar to trying to assemble a piece of IKEA furniture, for some reason, the people in the crowd would do nothing but scream for Sabaton. And not just scream their name, but be like “Why aren’t you starting already??” Well probably because the stage is still basically a manual and some screws? What do I know?

And this kept on. And remembering how I in my last entry about this, wrote about how things was just about to get worse? Well this was the part. Firstly, a lady comes from behind and start acting very elitist, worse than me. Proclaiming she’s been here for hours (haven’t seen her before?) and upon us telling her how far we drove and how long WE’VE been staying she calms down and instead starts talking about how she’s at least see them before. Honey, this was my 32nd Sabaton show, but please tell me more?

Second problem was a lady from the side. Her boyfriend or something had stayed next to me during U.D.O and he was fine. But her? She started talking about how she was going to push us away during Sabaton so he could stand next to her instead of behind her. Fuck that. And I figured, to myself, that it’d be the other way around. She’d be the one who is gone. It usually happens like that.

The endless screaming went on and on for a good half an hour to 45 minutes… Until the intro started rolling. At this point, no one cared. No one noticed. Except me. I remember even saying to people like “Look, it’s fucking starting now why aren’t you screaming?” Funny people, really.

Sabaton

So, the eerie new intro… haha. No. It’s not eerie, who am I kidding? The new intro is a bit silent, much like “Dominum Maris Baltici”, but eventually it picks up it’s pace. It’s a similar intro as to “Nightwitches”, just that now it’s “Ghost Division”. So there goes my long wishes about getting rid of “Ghost Division” as an opener. Oh well. Maybe another tour.

So, as you probably understood, “Ghost Division” was indeed the opener, and again, to practice some kind of dominance I might have burned out my neck at this point – and as the “Winged Hussars” arrived, all the annoying people were gone.

For the third song, Jocke wiped out a guitar and it was time for “Resist and Bite” because apparently that song is now a steady one, as opposed to a Belgian regional. Or perhaps its just for now. Somewhere here, supposedly accidently, the propaganda flyers were sent out. Well, why not?

After this, it was time for Sweden premiere of “Fields of Verdun”. Still, this really isn’t one of my favorite song, but still – I enjoyed it. “The Price of a Mile” was next on the list, and much to my dismay and almost disappointment, the choir is not joining the ranks.

And while speaking of that, a lot of other things were lacking as well. The trenches weren’t there, just the pyro thing. The grand The Great War sign was missing as well – felt like this was just a between show. And to make things worse, the screen didn’t work properly either. And you guys knows what that means, right? If you don’t, I’ll get back to that later.

And after this… it was time for a live premiere. As suspected, we beforehand suspected “Great War” and “Red Baron” would be premiered today, and it was time for “Great War.” Jocke spoke of being nervous for playing this, and evidently he should have been as he completely blanked out the lyrics.

Well, lucky Sabaton that they had us, Toivo, me, Elli and her friend. We all raised our voices and sang instead of him until he got back on track. But, it was magical nontheless! This is slowly becoming my favorite of the album.

Right after this, they fired off “Shiroyama” before embarking on “Bismarck” which was as epic as always. But due to crowd, we couldn’t start off our planned rowpit.

It got silent, and the lowkey intro for “Lion From The North” started coming out of the speakers, and the band got back on stage running out and firing off the song, launching them straight into “Carolus Rex” and later on “En Livstid i Krig”.

And there are two things I want to talk about here. Firstly, the incredibly epic singalong. It was LOUD. LOUD. And the second thing, remember how I talked about that the screen behind them not working?

This also means there was no baby bears. The baby bears is the only reason I enjoy this song live, and the only reason I accept this song live, is because of the baby bears. And if there is no baby bears, is there even a song? Is there even a point? I could almost cry. Baby bears are life.

The band left the stage and then the red blinking lights and sirens started going off alerting us that the “Nightwitches” where near, and such was the next song. “The Lost Battalion” was fired off before it was time for the next livepremiere, which was just as suspected, “Red Baron”.

They performed the song without an intro, much to my.. dislike. I guess I had an idea in my head on how you could have done this intro, but maybe for the tour? I improvied my swingdancing as well – wasn’t meant to but as Toivo asked how I thought about it we figured we would. And everyone probably hated us.

My personal favorite “The Last Stand” came next, thank god, before wrapping the set up as usual – “Primo Victoria”, “Swedish Pagans” and lastly with “To Hell and Back”

With that said, the band left the stage and we were left there. High on life, not sure what we had just witnessed. It was a very predictable set but nonetheless, they performed it very well. Thank you so much, Sabaton!

// Sara

This entry was posted on July 20, 2019 at 9:30 am and is filed under Music, Uncategorized with tags sabaton, the great war. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.