Kreator had just released a new album, and immediately took of on a European tour. The stop at the 013 venue in Tilburg was only the second gig of the tour. Last time they were here the venue was sold out in advance, it didn’t this time though, but then it was also still a lot smaller. Never the less the venue was already quite full as I arrived. I had missed the first band – Aborted – entirely due to the early start (who starts gigs at 18.30 on a working day?).

The second band was Soilwork and I only saw the last two or so songs of them. I can’t say that I cared much for it so I guess I didn’t miss much after all.

Sepultura were a top-of-the-bill thrash band in the early 90s who I unfortunately never got to see. The albums after Arise however I don’t care about at all, and I never bothered to go to any gigs of them even though they played in the area. Now they were supporting Kreator I could check out if they were still interesting. Well the answer to that is no. The newer material is horrendously boring. The singer sounds terrible and having only one guitar makes it sound quite thin, especially during guitar solos. They only played one song of Arise – Desperate Cry and one of Beneath the Remains – Inner self. So all in all quite a let-down. I don’t think I will go to see Sepultura again.

Then Kreator, who never really let down. The stage got prepared and during the intro two masked persons came on stage and lit two fire pits. Then the band came on and started Hordes of Chaos. The second song was the horrible Phobia, but most other folks in the audience seem to like it a lot. Obviously a few songs of the new album which I hadn’t heard followed as well, including Satan is Real which is a bit of a weird song, the title track Gods of Violence, Fallen Brother, World War Now, Hail to the Hordes. These sound quite typical Kreator, but perhaps not the most energetic songs they made. The songs were augmented with various effects, like fire columns, confetti shot into the crowd and smoke, and images on large screens behind them. Only Mille’s smoke gun looked nothing but pathetic. Older ground was covered too with People of the Lie. The ancient Total Death was even dusted off. The focus remained however on the albums since Violent Revolution. It was already near the end of the gig more classic tracks were played, including the perpetual set material Pleasure to Kill, Flag of Hate, and Extreme Aggressions. Nice was the inclusion of Under the Guillotine. There were no real encores but the band had already left the stage 3 or 4 times during the gig for another intro. Besides who cares about encores anyway. The band sounded quite solid, maybe not the best Kreator gig I have seen but still very well worth going.