After a swift set change, DEATH ANGEL took the stage to the eerie intro to “Left For Dead”. Vocalist Mark Osegueda was a complete freak on stage. After admitting he was under the weather (I don’t think anyone could tell) he went on to belt out sustained screams one right after another. The band – despite their veteran status – was at no loss of energy. I loved hearing several new songs, including the title track, off of their recent release The Dream Calls For Blood. Mark Osegueda encouraged the fans to stir up the pit for their last song of the night, “Thrown To The Wolves” – a thrash masterpiece, a thrashterpiece, off of their 2004 release, The Art Of Dying. What a show.

Setlist:

• “Left For Dead”
• “Son Of The Morning”
• “Claws In So Deep”
• “Succubus”
• “Execution-Don’t Save Me”
• “The Dream Calls For Blood”
• “Mistress Of Pain”
• “Thrown To The Wolves”

I had just made it out of the photo pit and upstairs to the balcony to catch “Hate Crew Deathroll”, which essentially unleashed hell on the general admission floor. Security was catching crowd surfers two at a time, one in each arm, as pit continued to grow. The entire set continued smoothly. The only slight hiccup was just the apparent displeasure Alexi was having with the volume in his monitors. He kept waving his arms to get the attention of the sound engineer to his left and motioning for him to turn them down. After ending their set with “Down Fall”, CHILDREN OF BODOM encored with “In Your Face” to end the evening. It was a fantastic night of new and old school metal. From the Vikings pillaging villages of Scandinavia to the early eighties inception of thrash metal and Finnish death metal at its finest; the bands complimented each other so well and each of them had something different to offer. It was a great show for any fan of metal.

Setlist:

• “Sixpounder”
• “Living Dead Beat”
• “Bodom Beach Terror”
• “Halo Of Blood”
• “Scream For Silence”
• “Hate Crew Deathroll”
• “Lake Bodom”
• “Follow The Reaper”
• “Dead Man’s Hand On You”
• “Are You Dead Yet?”
• “Blooddrunk”
• “Angels Don’t Kill”
• “Towards Dead End”
• “Hate Me!”
• “Downfall”

• “In Your Face”

All Photos By Geoff Ketler - Aces high Photography