27 August 2023 – The Triffid, Brisbane – words by Lucas Bell – pictures by Charlyn Cameron
It’s a weird feeling thinking a band can go over 20 years, and never tour Australia. But for fans of Swedish melodic metal band Avatar, that’s been a sad reality. But after 20 long years of yearning for the freak show to step foot onto Aussie soil, they’ve finally come and gone. And I was lucky enough to bear witness to possibly one of the most entertainment metal shows I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve seen bands like Slipknot, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Sleep Token, and countless others. But I think all those bands paled in comparison to what Avatar did over the course of 2 hours on Sunday night.
But before we get to that, I need to talk about Krave. The Brissy locals opened the show with a ripping cover of ‘Black Dog’ by Led Zeppelin to welcome everyone to the show. Krave then followed through with some high energy rock and roll tunes that absolutely kicked ass for about 30 minutes, and set the perfect tone for the night.
I have to also give major props to vocalist Siana Davis. Davis’s vocals have the raw power of Lzzy Hale from Halestorm, with the range of Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin. Absolutely incredible stuff. My two particular favorite songs of the night though, were the final two songs, ‘Take A Bow’, and a newer song, which I believe was played for the first time, called ‘Unalive’. Hopefully Krave gets more support slots moving forward, because they were, to put quite simply, awesome.
After a quick dress down from Krave’s set, the stage was set for Avatar to metaphorically, and literally, march onto the stage. Guitarists Jonas Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström, and bassist Henrik Sandelin step by step marched onto stage and then forward faced the crowd, while drummer John Alfredsson presented each member with their chosen instrument for the night. Sandelin then made his way to behind the kit, as the rhythm section of Avatar blasted into the opening track, ‘Dance Devil Dance’.
Then, like the absolute madman he is, lead vocalist Johannes Eckerström blasted his way onto stage and immediately had the entire crowd captured in his hand. The charisma this man oozes, is infectious, as The Triffid was easily the loudest I think I’ve ever heard it, as Eckerström encouraged everyone to move their bodies and sing along to songs like ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ and ‘Valley of Disease’. ‘The Eagle Has Landed’ I want to note specifically, that before this show, this was the only song of Avatar’s I knew. So seeing the entire venue throwing arms side to side to the chorus in beat, was truly a sight to behold.
After a quick welcome to the show, and a speech that had numerous, purposeful sexual overtones, the crowd were transformed into animals for the ‘Chimp Mosh Pit’, before Avatar blasted through a catalog defining set, including songs like ‘Bloody Angel’, ‘For the Swarm’, and possibly the most entertaining song of the night, ‘Puppet Show’. During the song, Eckerström had snuck his way to the balcony upstairs, where he not only completed a balloon animal for the crowd, but also did a trombone solo, just going to show that metal needs more brass sections.
Returning to the stage, the main set was finished up with a real rarity, ‘On the Beach’ (only played twice before this show, and they were both on this Australian tour), before the mood was brought down a bit with Eckerström sitting behind a keyboard for a solo rendition of ‘Tower’, before belting out ‘The Dirt I’m Buried In’, and ‘A Statue of the King’, which included Jarlsby coming onto stage in a crown and cape, to rip this tune.
As chants for more broke out, Avatar returned to give us the song ‘Colossus’, to a massive reception. Before the final two songs were played, Eckerström spoke very candidly about how much this tour has meant to them, and how they are only 50% of the equation when it comes to music. “We don’t matter, if you don’t care” I believe was the quote. After one final inspiring quote, “You are important. You matter. And if you ever forget that, I’ll come kick your ass”, we were treated to the perfect farewell, of ‘Smells Like a Freakshow’, and ‘Hail the Apocalypse’. The songs completed a perfect night of metal, comedy, and theater, that has truly set a high bar for any performance based shows I attend moving forward.
