Not a poem nor a photograph . . .

But this is going to be about Volbeat. Went to see them live at Samfundet yesterday. I've been at many stadium and arena shows. A setting like this is quite different but not worse, by any means. As "usual" I got a spot at the front row, dead center. The first support band sucked ass. Sorry to say it like that, but they did. Next one, Entombed, was quite decent. They had some really nice riffage going on and good melodies. Think it automatically sounds better with two guitarists, rythm guitar adds another dimention of weight to the solo parts, in my opinion. The vocalist looked to me as a leprechaun; short with long hair, stumbling around on stage. He was drunk to say the least.

I can't remember when Volbeat came on, think it was about 11 pm. From the very start I noticed that this was a type of show I have not been to. The pressure up front was intense! I had to really push back the crowd with my feet against the rail. It got a bit easier on the second half, though. Now, Volbeat is great live and that's not something I say to be nice. They're really professional about what they do as they go out 100 percent and do their job. The songs are good on CD, but live it is a complete different thing. This is how they are supposed to sound. We who were on the front row got attention from the band constantly. The bassplayer threw the horns at us, thumbs up etc... Michael, the singer, took it further. He stepped down to us on the floor so we could high five him and stuff like that. In addition to that, I got to strum his guitar. Loved every second of it.

As expected, Sad Man's Tongue was dedicated to Dio. I could not see behind me but it sounded like every person there yelled their lungs out and threw the horns in the air, amazing. Still, this was not the end of the night. Before they started "Thanks" they wanted people up on stage to just rock out and sing. Now, this is not I would do elsewhere. I said to the security "hey, lift me over the rail". I had to be hauled out, did not have any space to move. But yeah, I got up on stage with Volbeat, looking out to the audience. A thousand people going ballistic and then I was there along with three or four other I do not know. I was quite exhausted by then so it was sort of good that they played "Thanks", it is not so long. And that meant I could just use my last strength on stage for Volbeat. After the song, the band minus the drummer, gave us all new high-fives. During their last song I was standing a bit further back, just enjoying the moment and I could not care less about catching picks or drum sticks. It still kicked maximum ass!