Holy. Shit.
I just returned from the Emperor concert not too long ago. It was by far the best and most intense show I've ever been to in my life. I was standing in the front, and my ears are still ringing from all of the sheer intensity. My body reeks of sweat after being pushed around by fellow metalheads for hours, but I'll be taking a shower soon anyway. I'm fucking tired and my body is completely exhausted right now, but still, I'll try to give you guys as elaborate of a description as I can of tonight.
As soon as I walked in, I was approached by an 18-year-old guy, and we quickly took a liking towards each other. It turns out that he's a huge death metal fan from New Jersey, so we talked for a bit, exchanged screen names, stood right next to each other throughout the show and met briefly again after the show.
Anyway, the first band that opened for Emperor was Eyes of the Dead. Prior to the show, I've never heard any of their material, but when they played, I was blown away. I know Metal-Archives has them listed as melodic death/thrash metal, but to me, they just sounded more like blackened death metal. Don't know why. After their set was over, they handed out demos to almost everyone in the front, including me, containing the songs Six Feet From Salvation and Death Sentence. Their bassist was wearing a Slayer shirt, and their last song was a cover of Raining Blood.
Next up was Averse Sefira. They're quite good, don't get me wrong, but out of the three bands that performed tonight, I would say they were the least impressive. The best song they performed tonight was Decapitation of Sigils. I shook the bassist's hand after their set was over.
After Averse Sefira was the main attraction--Emperor. Secthdaemon was standing about 1 or 2 feet away from me, headbanging like a motherfucker, with Ihsahn on his right. To the right of Ihsahn was Samoth. Einar and Trym were all the way in the back of the stage, barely visible, even from where I was standing. The band started off with by playing a medley combining Into the Infinity of Thoughts, The Burning Shadows of Silence, and Cosmic Keys To My Creation and Times.
Here were the songs they played tonight (not necessarily in order):
The aforementioned medley, Thus Spake The Nightspirit, The Majesty of the Night Sky, Towards The Pantheon, I Am The Black Wizards, Inno A Satana, Curse You All Men, With Strength I Burn, An Elegy of Icaros, Opus A Satana, and Ye Entrancemperium.
All of these songs were performed brilliantly, but Ihsahn screwed up a couple of times while playing With Strength I Burn, and I couldn't help but notice that Opus A Satana sounded a little bit off-key, but whatever. Those are pretty minor gripes. Also, I wish Ihsahn's vocals were more audible.
On top of that, since I purchased a VIP ticket, not only did I land a spot in the front, but I also shook all of the members' hands at the end and received a poster signed by all of them. On the way home, my brother and I were talking about how much the poster would be worth if we sell it on eBay. If any of you guys want it, I'll give it to you for $100.00. But that's pretty unlikely right now, since I want to keep it as a memento of this great concert. Regrettably, I only brought along about $6.00 with me tonight, so I didn't have a chance to purchase any merchandise (the shirts cost well over $20.00), but the poster will do, because when I showed it to some other fans who didn't get any VIP tickets, they immediately became jealous.
So, after all that was over, I left BB Kings with my brother, got something to drink, came back and right outside, I saw the members of Eyes of the Dead. They actually came up to my brother and I and they recognized us because we were in the front. We talked for about two minutes, and they ended the conversation by telling us to visit their MySpace. Lawl.
I didn't have the chance to take nearly as many pictures as I initially wanted to take. I took several pics of the opening bands (which I'll post later), but when Emperor took the stage, the crowd became way crazier, and so I managed to take only one pic of them early on and later decided that was going to be it (and on top of that, my camera was short on batteries anyway).
I suppose I'm going to end this post with that picture I mentioned. Only Ihsahn and Samoth are visible in this pic, though.