The Tribune Who Brought The Snow Cannon – WARKINGS in Leipzig

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Not all major battles in world history are well documented or even known. However, one great advantage of our multimedia age is that we can wonderfully document the battles that are currently taking place. One such battle took place last Friday in Leipzig: WARKINGS rose from the undead to join VICTORIUS and HAMMER KING at Hellraiser Leipzig to prove that battles today are just as epic as they were in ancient times. 

A big thank you at this point to Oktober Promotion, who made it possible for us to take part in the concert!

The wonderful pictures were, as always, made by lightinmirror.de

VICTORIUS

Anyone who follows this blog knows about my love for the cheerfully senseless Power Metal that VICTORIUS play. I simply love music that has a thematic focus like a 90s toy commercial on ecstasy. 

True to their style, the band around singer David kicked off their unfortunately far too short set with the new song Total T-Rex Terror. I don’t know about you, but songs about dinosaurs accompanied by fast guitars always trigger waves of euphoria in me! (Maybe also because you can’t go wrong with dinos and guitars…) What’s more, the new song is the first glimpse of what will hopefully be a forthcoming album from this wonderful band sooner rather than later. 

If you play fast, you get more done and so we continued with catchy tunes like Shuriken Showdown, Mighty Magic Mammoth and (my personal favorite) Katana Kingdom Rising. The Hellraiser was already boiling and by Dinos and Dragons we had a total T-Rex party (see what I did there…?).

As easy-going as the set had started, it was over just as quickly… You’d think that after all the times I’ve seen VICTORIUS, I’d finally learned my lesson. But well… Once again I had a super persistent earworm from Supersonic Samurai. This song is so insanely good that it’s almost criminal! By the time you read this, I probably still won’t be rid of it…

HAMMER KING

True to the motto „Make Metal Royal Again“, HAMMER KING then took over the heated audience of the Hellraiser. 

I hadn’t seen HAMMER KING live before and was excited to see what was in store for me. 

First of all, I thought it was absolutely amazing how many songs you can pull out of the words „Hammer“ and „King“! The group around former ROSS THE BOSS singer Titan Fox plays clean Heavy Metal with a feudalistic touch, which has found its latest manifestation in the album König und Kaiser. 

The single of the same name from the album, which also includes a feature from the WARKINGS Tribune, also found its catchy way onto the evening’s setlist. 

Overall, the set was solid, but it wasn’t really my kind of music. Personally, I would have swapped VICTORIUS and HAMMER KING in the course of the evening and I saw that confirmed a bit in the crowd’s reactions. Unfortunately, HAMMER KING couldn’t maintain the party atmosphere.

But if you’re looking for solid Heavy Metal with a royal feel, you’ll have a lot of fun with this band.

WARKINGS

From a royal band to more kings (of war)!

It’s been 1.5 years since we last saw WARKINGS live, so the anticipation was correspondingly high. So was the audience’s anticipation, who chanted „WARKINGS!“ and let their impatience be known.

I was absolutely blown away right from the start: The skillful use of light and sound effects expertly accentuated the anticipatory mood right up to the first beats of The Last Battle. If I had to briefly describe the prevailing mood, the most appropriate description would certainly have been “ the room was on fire!“

After the first few songs, it’s clear why so many shows on this tour were sold out: The current WARKINGS shows boast furious songs performed by a group of history-mad people (ahem…undead…) who play like there’s no tomorrow. The musicians are supported by a crew that knows how to get the best out of sound and ambience, putting the spotlight on what belongs in the spotlight.

Musically, there is a lot here for those who feel close to Power and Heavy Metal. Latin is an advantage, but not a requirement! The appearance of WARKINGS is of course characterized by the incredibly detailed costumes, but the group around the Tribune can also easily convince musically. Detailed guitar playing meets driving (drum) beats and martial vocal artistry. If that’s not enough for you, you’ll be satisfied at the latest when Morgana le Fay storms the stage and makes the WARKINGS look even more ancient than they already are with her guttural vocals! Her vocals are also incredibly compelling in combination with the tribune.

Even though the show had a lot to offer, I couldn’t help but have a very German moment: During the song Ragnar, a kind of foam or snow cannon was activated, which made it look like it was snowing on stage. This stuff looked very sticky and even stuck to some of the audience. What was my first thought? “ Oh boy, oh boy, will this come out when it’s washed?“ Sometimes the inner 80 year old just comes out!

All in all, the Hellraiser was probably more full of life that evening than it had been for a long time! Fans crowdsurfing in the band’s own swimming ring? Check! A Hephaestus summoning fire and leading the fans in the pit? Check! Carrying the merch lady with a huge flag through the audience? Check, check, check! Here was a band on stage that simply wanted to celebrate a (historically inspired) Metal party with their fans. They fulfilled this intention 120% and we were left full of enthusiasm. Thank you for this awesome evening!