09.01.2015 Sabaton

Turbinenhalle, Oberhausen (Germany)

Already before the concert had started it was loudly chanted „Noch ein Bier!“ before the Swedish entered the stage after the used intro “The Final Countdown” by Europe and their own intro “The March To War”. After that, they directly delivered a broadside by “Ghost Division”.
The crowd was celebrating the band from start to end and was of course again and again animated by all band members to even give more. Just this is really one of the strong suits of Sabaton. Permanently all were interacting specifically during the songs with single persons out of the audience or between the songs they are fooling around on stage. Of course, within the scope of their tour related to the current album “Heroes” mainly songs out of that were played like e.g. “Soldiers Of 3 Armies” or “Night Witches”. But also the other albums were not missed out. Between the songs it is chanted “Noch ein Bier!” like it always is at Germany instead of chanting “Sabaton!” which singer Joakim Broden is following after some time (The candidate out of the audience taking part on this drinking contest was downing the beer that fast that Joakim simply was able to say “Scheiße!”).
Not only the beer was indulged in (at summer there should be even their own “Noch ein Bier!”-festival at Gelsenkirchen) but rather as funny point of the evening the crowd could choose between two possibilities that Joakim Broden was presenting to them. Due to that there was “Gott Mit Uns” in Swedish rather than on English, “Soldier Of 3 Armies” instead of “Smoking Aces” and “The Lion From The North” in English instead of “1648” in Swedish. Just like always there was the squabbling about “Swedish Pagans”. On and on the crowd was intonating the chorus and Joakim Broden was refusing all the time to play that song until guitarist Chris Rörland picked up the slip with the setlist and added “Swedish Pagans”.
The whole show was one big party on and in front of the stage where it was loudly sang along and clapped along. The guys know masterly how to stage themselves and also the stage setting (the front of a tank was at the middle of the stage on which the drum set of Hannes Van Dahl was situated) was perfectly fitting to their military influenced lyrics. Due to that they are meanwhile that popular that on the evening before there was even an additional concert taking place. Unfortunately, there is one point in time, where the band leaves the stage for the first time but after loud chants they came back for three more songs and with the funny “Metal Crüe” which is formed by quotations of different well-known metal songs a great evening came to its end.
Not only me, but also the other 3000 people had a lot of fun with Sabaton and so I will think of perhaps additionally going to the “Noch ein Bier!”-festival this summer. With a Sabaton concert you can simply not decide on something wrong.