Kreator
March 25, 2017
The Observatory – Santa Ana, CA
The annual Decibel Magazine tour always offers some of the biggest names in the metal industry and puts them together for an incredible night for metal fans throughout the USA. This year was no different as it was headlined by German thrash metal legends, Kreator. Along with them was a stellar lineup of brutal bands that included death metal legends Obituary, blackened thrash metal band Midnight, and extreme metal band Horrendous whom opened up the show. So many fans were looking forward to this show that it sold out ahead of time and plenty of fans were seen outside the venue looking for spare tickets while the venue itself had a big sign sign that there will never be tickets available for the show. Even when Horrendous started the show, the venue was already packed with fans as is expected on a Saturday night in Orange County.
Obituary are a legendary death metal band from Florida. They released their self titled, tenth studio album Obituary on March 17th, 2017. With that album and everything other crushing album they have, they had plenty to offer to all the death metal fans in the audience. Obituary came out and started the show with Internal Bleeding from their 1989 debut album, Slowly We Rot. Even after all these years, Obituary still hold up their reputation of being one of the best death metal bands around and the fans showed their appreciation as they quickly started moshing and with a fully packed venue, everyone felt the moshing and shoving in the pit area. The show continued with the classic track, Chopped In Half. Visually, the stage was kept dark most of the time which sometimes made it hard for fans to see the band even though most of the time, fans were too busy moshing to notice. Crowd surfers were plentiful and security was kept busy keeping for the whole performance. After a nine song set, Obituary finished their performance with their most famous song Slowly We Rot from their debut album of the same name. Fans were all too familiar with this and the mosh pits got more intense and crowd surfers seemed to be never ending. All in the name of metal. Obituary left the stage and there was still the main band of the night.
Kreator are one of the big three of German thrash metal alongside Destruction and Sodom. Since 1982, they have been releasing album after album which are always pleasing to the ears. On January 27, 2017, they released their 14th studio album Gods of Violence which has received positive reviews from fans. Plenty of Kreator fans were seen amongst the crowd. the lights went out and the fans cheered and screamed as the band members came out and started the show with Hordes of Chaos. With the intensity and speed of their music, the mosh pit once again started up. The stage was filled with fancy lights to make the band look good and only added more feeling to the show. The next song was the fan-favorite Phobia and fans love singing along to the opening line, “Is there something following you, following you?” and was only made better during the chorus as fog cannons shot up fog as frontman Mille Petrozza would sing, “Phobiaaa!”. With a new album out, Kreator brought out a few tracks from that album to see how the fans would react. The third song played was Satan Is Real from that new album and fans were loving it. Even the performance of the album title track Gods of Violence had the fans going crazy and there was no slowing down at all for the rest of the night. Petrozza was on point the whole night handling guitar and vocal duties and his voice only seems to get better as time goes on as he has a powerful voice that, combined with the music, is a perfect combination for metal music and will have anyone and everyone headbanging. Other crushing songs in their set included Enemy of God, From Flood into Fire, Phantom Antichrist, and World War Now. Later in the set, Petrozza took a quick break to talk to the audience and show his appreciation saying how if it weren’t for the fans, they wouldn’t be here. He talked about how the fans had been there for the good time and the bad times. He started introducing the next song on the list, another fan-favorite, and mentioned how the fans were also there in times of…Extreme Aggression. The show finished with Civilization Collapse and all seemed quite on stage. The fans chanted the band’s name and surely enough, the band came back out for a few encores. The first encore was Violent Revolution and once again, the audience went into a frenzy and we’re obviously not ready to go home just yet. As the band prepared for the next encore song, Petrozza came out with Kreator‘s Flag of Hate flag and waved it around. If that flag is out, fans knew that the next song coming up was Flag of Hate, which it was and fans loved hearing it. Under the Guillotine was next and always makes the fans go wild with its classic thrashy sound that metal fans love. The final song of the night was the band’s most famous song. Petrozza would yell and ask the crowd, “are you ready to kill each other!?” the crowd would respond with a very loud scream that your ear drums would have been in pain. Kreator ended the show with Pleasure to Kill and it was the craziest song of their set as the mosh pit got even more violent and crowd surfers were everywhere. Chaos itself was everywhere and at that point, it was best to just either join in or headbang until you know your neck will be sore the next morning. Kreator wrapped up their show and once again showed their appreciation for fans and left the stage. Fans were walking out of the venue drunk, smiles on their faces, or limping out of they were in the floor area. All signs of a great show and conversations to be had with peers over the next few days.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
Obituary
Kreator
