Avatar serves Philly a Swedish Metal Sandwich with Dance Devil Dance Tour 2023
Heavy metal fans at Philadelphia’s Theater of the Living Arts (TLA) kicked off Memorial Day weekend together with a trio of high-energy, banging bands: Heating up the crowd for headliner Avatar were Sweden’s Orbit Culture, who delivered a relentlessly heavy seven-song set.
Written by Jonathan Lane
The middle of the sandwich, Veil of Maya, out of Chicago, continued the assault. Front man Lukas Magyar commanded the stage with his powerful and passionate vocals and great crowd interaction, supported by shredder Marc Okubo, Sam Applebaum on drums and Danny Hauser on bass. The crowd returned the love. The generous 12-song set included tracks from 2015 through their 2023 album, “Mother”.
Ever popular Avatar, out of Gothenburg Sweden, hit the stage to deafening cheers from the TLA crowd, and earned fans’ adulation, cutting right to the chase with “Dance Devil Dance”, off their latest album by the same name, released in mid-February of this year.
In contrast to the two openers, who deliver great, straightforward heavy metal sets, with little ado beyond melting the audience’s faces, Avatar’s performance is an immersive, interactive experience, led by their flamboyant, talented front man, Johannes Eckerström. The songs are dark, devilish, subversive, as are Johannes’ frequent monologues. When he pokes fun at the crowd, he makes sure they’re still in on the joke. His affection and affinity for fans comes across as real, and along with the super-tight, talented band behind, him, he gives 200% to the performance, right down to his miraculously appearing in a balcony high above the TLA’s main floor, where he inflated balloons and blew some trombone, elbow to elbow with fans. As big as his personality is, every member gets his fair share of the spotlight, individually and as a metal quartet: Jonas and Tim on guitars, Henrik on bass, and John on drums. There were solos, duets, guitar duels, and a few fun antics, echoing Eckerström’s always enjoyable clowning around.
Photo gallery of Avatar performance below.
The music ranged from dark, heavy, head-banging numbers to a cabaret-style segment with a solo Johannes accompanying his own crooning on a mini-grand piano.
Between the main 16-song set and a 3-song encore, Avatar played a crowd-pleasing array of tunes from their two-decade career, including top favorites:
“The Eagle Has Landed” – “Bloody Angel” – “Colossus” and show closer, “Hail the Apocalypse”.
The show also included four more tracks from “Dance Devil Dance”:
“Valley of Disease” – “Chimp Mosh Pit” – “Do You Feel in Control” and “The Dirt I’m Buried In”.
Avatar will be hitting a dizzying array of festivals in Europe the UK and US starting this week and into November, while wedging in the remainder of the Dance Devil Dance Tour down under.
Details: https://avatarmetal.com/
Veil of Maya will be back on stage with 3 gigs in August, along with Ice Nine Kills and others.
Details: https://veilofmayaband.com/
Orbit Culture will be touring Europe and the UK with 23 stops, June to September.
Details: https://www.orbitculture.com/
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