ARCH ENEMY Japanese Khaos Tour –Yokohama Blitz 2012-04-14 LIVE REPORT

I saw Arch Enemy live!

Essentially that sums up the whole live … but you can click the Jump if you want more details!

I finished with my responsibilities nice and early that Saturday, got on the shink and headed off to civilisation for what was my most anticipated live show of the year so far. I deliberately chose the Saturday show in Yokohama because I had been to Shibuya AX before and I had heard many things about Yokohama BLITZ and I wanted to see for myself just how awesome it was. In truth. I prefer AX. but that's neither here nor there. A live house does not make a show. The band and the fans do.

Arch Enemy needs  no intro. They were on my band bucket list and I am a big fan of many of their songs off many of their albums. They played many of those that night too. They played well. they played with a level of skill that is expected of a band that is as famous and well travelled as they are and they set the crowd alight as one would expect them to. Yes the atmosphere was one that I have seen and written about at great length in other live reports on this blog.

What set this apart?

Well a few things. The first thing was seeing Angela Gossow in person on stage. Yes she is hot and her vocals are brutal but I didn’t expect here to be as kind or as considerate as she was. The band drove home their usual message (which i absolutely love by the way) of standing up to the oppressive systems that seek to control and govern the way we live our lives but she (they) also were very supportive of Japan and the hardships that people are facing as a result of last year.

The second was the crowd. Arch Enemy have written many anthems. They are uplifting and inspirational pieces. And they lend themselves to crowd integration in ways that I have only ever heard before on Iron Maiden live albums. There was  A LOT more crowd participation and singing along than I have seen at similar shows in the past. The trade off seems though that while the music united the crowd, it didn’t inspire them to much violence. The pit was small and only really got intense toward the end. It also didn’t have nearly as much staying power as others I have experienced. Any pit is a good one though. I did get my mosh but it didn’t break me. It didn’t sufficiently drain my energy reserves and as a result I could go a whole night at Ageha afterwards (but that is another tale)

I daresay singing along to the chorus of “Nemesis” between short fast moshes in a huge packed venue is pretty damn awesome though.

Yes I had a good time!!!

It was Arch fu*king Enemy LIVE!!!