The King is back. After some medical problems a while back, King Diamond  is touring the major European summer festival but also managed to slip in a few club gigs. Like the one in 013. The gig got riddled with confusion, after erroneous announcements that they would play a three hour set, shifts in the starting time, the appearance of any supports. In the end it all got straightened out. There’d be no supports, because of the stage setup. And 20.30 sharp the lights went out in the hall and the stage was lit by a couple of floor lamps. The stage was decorated like the inside of an old house or church with a couple of large stairs surrounding the drumkit. A couple of upside-down crosses and a huge pentagram at the back that’d light while the intro was played on the PA.

And then the band came on stage and they kicked of “The Candle” off the debut album. King sounded really good, and although the guitars sounded a bit thin early on, that got fixed quite quickly. And every now and again some girl appeared in various outfits during the songs – Grandma during the brilliant Welcome Home, some black figure during Shapes of Black, a witch during Voodoo, Miriam during the set closer The Black Horsemen. The band played quite tight, not really considering King gathered two great guitarist (Mike Wead and Andy LaRocque) and a very solid Rhythm section – although the drum solo was a bit unnecessary and quite generic (then again I never really understood why one needed drum solo’s in a gig anyway). The set list focussed mostly on older albums with some odd choices here and there (Up from the Grave, Shapes of Black) that could be replaced by many better songs. Then again songs like Sleepless Nights, Dreams, The Family Ghost are excellent choices. I do wonder why King would (quite obviously by holding the mic away from his face) playback the first verse of At The Graves. The also threw in a couple of Mercyful Fate songs to complete the set – Evil and Come to the Sabbath. Well, a really great gig actually, albeit a little short with a nett playing time of about 75 minutes.