Turbinenhalle, Oberhausen,
16th of December 2022.

About two years ago, Amorphis would have been supporting Nightwish during their European Tour. Sadly, due to Covid restrictions, that tour was postponed, which made them cancel their support for that tour. Thankfully for us, this gave room for Amorphis to plan a co-headline tour with Eluveitie. As support, they brought along heavy-hitters Dark Tranquillity and Nailed to Obscurity.

The only hurdle I had to take, was that the Dutch date for this tour was the exact same date as my planned Nightwish show. The only way to work around that, is to make the two-hour drive to the Turbinenhalle in Oberhausen, Germany.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to this venue. The very big hall can house around 1500 fans. Next to the venue, there is a big parking lot where you can park your car for only three euros. A lot of Dutch venues can learn from this, as this seems very hospitable. From the parking lot, it’s only a short walk to the venue.

The day had been pretty cold, and a lot of fans came prepared. To be fair, I wished I had brought a sweater, as the hall itself was pretty chilly, even though it was packed to the brim. Due to traffic, I sadly missed Nailed to Obscurity. Because of that I had the chance to check out the merch (one of the large size shirts was already sold out) and after a short wait Dark Tranquillity entered the stage.

Earlier this year, I was able to catch the Swedes during their tour with Ensiferum. During that tour, they had a longer setlist and their main focus was obviously the recently released “Moment.” In the meantime, lead singer Mikael Stanne also released the debut album “Days of the Lost” with The Halo Effect.

As always, the energy on stage was vibrant. Stanne ran all over and interacted with the audience. The setlist was a nice mixture of records, where even two songs from “Damage Done” were played. Compared to the show earlier this year, it was over in a breeze, but with their energy and passion, I’m sure they have made quite some new fans in Germany.

A huge backdrop was put up, showing the artwork from their latest single “Exile of the Gods”. This single might be one of the harshest to date for Eluveitie and, of course, the Swiss started their show with this one. Lead singer Chrigel Glanzmann addressed the crowd in German, saying how happy he is to be touring and performing again after the last couple of years. 

“Exile of the Gods” and “Aidus” set the path for a “new” Eluveitie, which we can also see on stage, as the band now contains a whopping nine stagemembers. Glanzmann notes about the new direction: “We’re no longer a “Celtic metal” band, a metal band singing about celtic history. We’re Celts playing metal music from all our hearts. We’re no longer a “pagan metal” band. We are metal music playing pagans from all our hearts, gashing principles of our modern societies with our ancient message like a surgical blade. That’s probably the best way to describe our new single. Deal with it!”

One of the new members of the band is Annie Riedler on hurdy-gurdy, who had a blast on stage. Same can be said about the rest of the band obviously, but also about the crowd. At one point, there were people standing on friends’ shoulders!

Right before the encore, we got treated to “De Ruef vo de Bärge,” which is “Call of the Mountains,” in their native Swiss-German language.

Last band to end the evening was Amorphis. I missed them in The Netherlands as mentioned, thus I was happy to be able to catch them here. To me, it seemed as if their show was a bit shorter than that of Eluveitie and it seemed they played the same setlist for the whole tour.

In the beginning of the show, the Finns had a lightshow which I haven’t seen a lot lately. Blue and red lights alternated, which was fun for the fans, but made my work as a photographer a bit harder. It’s nice to see that all bands this evening didn’t need fancy fire or fireworks to enhance their show. Just let the music do the talking, and that’s what Amorphis did.

It’s clear that this was part of their “Halo” tour, as most of the songs played were from that album. Nothing wrong with that though, as the album is one of my favorite releases from this year. Next to songs like “Northwards” and “The Moon.” we also got treated to some older songs. In total, seven studio albums were covered with one or sometimes two songs from each. It gave a great view on the history of Amorphis. Talking about that, if you were quick, you could buy the Amorphis book at the merch, signed!

Last song of the evening was “House of Sleep” which is clearly  a fan favorite. Every time this song is played, everybody gives their last bit of energy. Afterwards, fans had to venture back into the cold, yet the evening with such great bands, must have warmed their souls and filled their hearts with joy.

Writer: Michael

Setlist Dark Tranquillity:
Identical to None
Terminus (Where Death Is Most Alive)
What Only You Know
Atoma
Nothing to No One
Cathode Ray Sunshine
Hours Passed in Exile
Phantom Days
Misery’s Crown

 

Setlist Eluveitie
Exile of the Gods
Nil
Deathwalker
Epona (Metal version)
Anu
A Rose for Epona
Guitar Solo
Thousandfold
Ambiramus
Drum Solo
King
Breathe
De Ruef vo de Bärge

Encore:

Aidus
Ategnatos
Inis Mona

 

Setlist Amorphis:
Northwards
On the Dark Waters
Death of a King
Silver Bride
Into Hiding
Wrong Direction
The Moon
Seven Roads Come Together
Black Winter Day
My Kantele
The Bee
House of Sleep