The last time the King played in the Netherlands has been 6 years ago. Not much seem to have happened on the musical side of things. But this spring he is back touring in Europe again. This time with a bunch of support acts too.

The opening band was Angel Witch. An old NWOBHM band. I missed the first part of the gig as the security in the venue was quite tight – don’t know why really. So I only saw a few songs. It sounded alright. The singer often forgot to sing into the mic which is a little dorky. Fairly catchy songs – nothing complex – and some cool solos. The vocals are very basic. Most of the material came from their debut album. Decent warm-up though.

The second support has a very different style, namely gothic doom metal, by the UK band Paradise Lost. They never seem to convince much live, even though they play their music quite well. Aaron is a rock steady rhythm guitarist. But generally there just isn’t a whole lot going on. Most of the songs are a bit on the slow side but stick to a fairly similar pace throughout the set. No Hope in Sight – The Plague Within was their best album in many years – and Embers Fire are the stand out tracks. No As I Die, Eternal or Pity the Sadness unfortunately.

Of course the majority of the crowd came to see the main act. It took a while for King Diamond to finally start the gig. During the change over they raised a huge curtain with the King Diamond logo in front of the stage. Then when all was set, a Uriah Heep song sounded over the speakers. Until finally the curtain was dropped and the intro of Abigail played over the speakers with the King enacting the funeral of the baby Abigail. Then it was Arrival followed by A Mansion in Darkness. A really cool start The bass drums sounded a bit too loud at the beginning, but that was fixed during the first song. Other than that the sound was pretty good. King voice was quite good which is somehow important as it is one of the things that gives this band its unique sound. And he seemed to be in quite a good mood, joking and engaging with the audience in between songs. Both guitarist are stellar.

Most of the songs came from the 80s and 90s, The Candle, Welcome Home, The Invisible Guests, The Eye of the Witch, even Burn, the magnificent Sleepless Nights, Voodoo, Halloween. Two new(er) tracks were included as well. Masquerade of Madness, which was played on their previous gigs dating back to 2019 and Spider Lily. Both songs weren’t all that interesting. And the new album has been pushed back time and time again. But frankly I am not really looking forward to any new material, the last couple of albums haven’t been all that great and with the live songs didn’t make me expect a huge improvement over that. Anyway, in between the songs many familiar intros were played from tape. However these interrupted the flow of the set each time. After the regular set they returned for one more song, the title track of Abigail.