Behemoth released their latest album I Loved You At Your Darkest a bit before this show, so I was really excited about another chance to see this amazing blackened death metal band. I saw them a few years ago in Grand Rapids, and they were great in their opening slot. This time, full on headlining show at the Aztec Theatre in San Antonio.

Great venue, looks fantastic, and not huge, so I found a great spot to be right in front of the soundboard, where I like to be, and wasn’t far from the stage.

First up, an atmospheric black metal band from Washington state called Wolves in the Throne Room. They don’t do the corpsepaint, and the songs rely on lots of tremolo-picking. They definitely didn’t come out to bash people over the head with just heavy and fast stuff, and they spent a lot of their set playing extended keyboard atmospheres. Not bad stuff, but I didn’t really know any of their music, so I can’t say too much about it. I’ll have to look into them a bit more.

Next up was At The Gates, a Swedish band that’s been around for quite a long time. I’ve heard some of their stuff before this, but never sat through this much of their music before. It’s cool, but for some reason hasn’t grabbed me yet. I’ll dig into them more and see where it goes. But they play a great set, the singer has a ton of energy and moves around the stage a lot. I finally got to see some Solar guitars up close, and they sounded really good. I’ve been thinking about getting one, but we’ll see, haha!

Then came the moment we’d all been waiting for. The mighty Behemoth! I’ve been a fan of this band for years now, and they’ve been getting bigger and bigger with every album. It was amazing to finally see them headline a show, and they did not disappoint.

This band is super-tight musically, and the sound was really good. Not overpowering on the low end, making things mushy, so you could hear what was going on. The band is very dramatic on stage, with costumes and different effects during the show. They don’t take it too far where they don’t interact with the crowd, though. Nergal spends a bit of time talking with people, and keeping the energy high.

This was almost a religious experience. The presentation, the sound, the music, it’s a fantastic show. One you should make an effort to go see. What a great band! I also captured one of my favorite songs, “Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer”, which sounds great! Enjoy!