HAMMERFALL

The night was set for the second visit of Hammerfall to Mexico city, last time they came here was more than two years ago, unfortunately I didn´t have the chance to attend to that concert, but this time it was different, and I was there to witness the overwhelming stage power of this Swedish band.

The concert was due to start at 8 pm so we were there one hour before, the doors were opened exactly at 8, and once there we could “enjoy” the presentation of the Mexican progressive band Acacia, they´ve got just one professional release and a demo, they played just four songs, each one of them being very long by the way, the band seems tight and the guitar player is obviously the leader, I think they can make something good of their career if they change their singer, come on!!! The man is not metal at all!, neither his voice nor his look reminds you of any of the metal vocal gods we´re used to listening, is the guy trying to be a “metal Ricky Martin”? maybe.

By the end of their last song some people started yelling at them and asking for what we came there: Hammerfall, after Acacia had left the stage it took yet another long 25 minutes before the lights went off, and there they were: Magnus Rosen was the first one to appear, I don´t know why but he has always reminded me of a caveman, then Anders sat behind his drum kit and soon after Joacim, Oscar and Stefan showed up, all of this while the tunes of “Lore of the Arcane” were playing. People went really nuts when they started playing “Riders of the Storm”, the band sounding much better than in studio and not allowing the vibe to go down but increasing it with “Heading the call”.

It is difficult to describe the behavior of the band on stage, Joacim is one of the best frontmen nowadays but not because of his voice which is very good but doesn´t reach the status of excellent, no, the man has something called charisma, he loves to be on stage and he lives the songs, he gives ´em a feeling that you can´t get on any of their studio releases, he´s just awesome. Oscar is the other member on the band with a great personality, standing 6´ 8´´ tall he´s one of the tallest metal players I´ve seen, well, he and Scott Travis from Judas Priest, his solos were played flawlessly, an although he was not all the time in the front part of the stage the smile on his face resumed everything the concert had been. The band is in constant touch with people, they even went down the stage at the end of the show to salute people, hey!!! They were really enjoying the night.

They played several songs from their debut album among them the tittle track, “The Dragon lies bleeding”, “Hammerfall” and “The Metal Age”, the highest point of the gig for me was when they played “Templars of Steel” it featured one of the most impressive sing along sections I´ve ever seen. The songs “Crimson Thunder” and “Hearts on Fire” are also very strong when played live. Unfortunately they didn´t play my favorite Hammerfall song: “Dreamland”, yes I know, It´s just another happy song but I love the chorus, well maybe next time.

Two things in the concert were not good in my appreciation, first Magnus played a bass guitar solo that lasted too long for my taste and the same goes for Anders´ drum solo, I mean, this formula has become really boring since every band seems to do it, but maybe it´s necessary in order to give a short rest for the other members. Also there were some technical problems in the middle of the show, some monitors were not working properly and that caused the sound to go away for moments, it all threatened with spoil the show but the band did their best to keep the energy up and soon the problems were over.

They said that they were recording the show that night and probably one or two songs from the set will appear in their upcoming live CD, we Mexican people really hope so.