One year after their show at Jäähalli as a special guest for Sabaton, Accept returns with not only a new album, but also a new tour. Last stop of their “Rise of Chaos” tour is in Helsinki. Check out the gallery here.
Accompanying the legendary accept is Night Demon, one of the bands that’s in the pool of “band I’ve never heard of before seeing live”. Music-wise the band managed to surprise me. A decent portion of heavy metal, with elements from thrash metal, but mostly reminding of NWOBH (specifically reminding me a bit of Angel Witch) sharp rhythms and a lot of noise coming from only 3 guys.
What did annoy me a bit about the show is the lighting behind it. I felt somehow as if I was in a disco as there seemed to be only a few settings: hardly any front lights, blue, red and green and sometimes strobes. The use of strobes in gigs, to me, is hardly understandable. Aside from being blinded at some points, I did enjoy the gig. The band played 12 numbers. Even though I didn’t know any of the songs, I do have some that I remember and will listen to again when I have time, such as “Black Widow” and “The Chalice”. The band closed off the gig with “Wasted Years”, a cover song from Iron Maiden, which the audience seemed to appreciate.
And then it was finally time for Accept to start their show. But before the band came on stage we got to witness the reveal of their props on stage and boy can I tell you how neat The Circus looked like. Accept kicked off with “Die by the Sword”, a warm up for the band as well. Soon followed by “Stalingrad” and “Restless and Wild”. With the first three songs it’s clear that even though the band has been touring quite much, for their last stop, they still saved a decent amount of energy. The setlist contained some songs from the latest album, which seem to do well live, a lot of newer songs that by now have turned into classics.
The real Accept-classics were placed strategically at the end of the show. “Princess Of The Dawn” always shows how much the band is still appreciated, as people sing along and even when they don’t know the lyrics or they are drunk as fuck, everyone is still shouting nicely along to the tunes. In The Circus it seemed like the party was never going to end after “Princess Of The Dawn”. A nice surprise was the older “Objection Overruled”. “Fast as a Shark” marked the beginning of a very convincing “We want more”, which gave us three more songs: “Metal Heart”, “Teutonic Terror” and of course “Balls to the Wall”.
Setlist
- Die by the Sword
- Stalingrad
- Restless and Wild
- London Leatherboys
- Breaker
- The Rise of ChaosKoolaidNo RegretsAnalog ManFinal JourneyShadow SoldiersGuitar SoloNeon NightsPrincess of the DawnMidnight MoverUp to the Limit
- Objection Overruled
- Pandemic
- Fast as a Shark
- Metal Heart (encore)
- Teutonic Terror (encore)
- Balls to the Wall (encore)
