When it was announced that In Flames would come to Holland again and with Sepultura as main support I was very excited to see these two great bands perform live. It even got better when I heard that Dagoba, a promising young band from France , would do the warm-up. Things turned out a little bit different than I expected but it would become an awesome night.

I wasn’t the only person who was very anxious to see these bands perform live, already a few days before the show all the tickets where sold out and when I arrived at De Effenaar there was an enormous line of people eager to get in. We where so gentle to ourselves to take care we wouldn’t miss Dagoba and after climbing the hideous red stairs we entered the hall. I especially use the word hall, because De Effenaar is just a big empty space without a balcony, it hasn’t got a good vibe.

Anyway, when Dagoba started to abuse their strings only a few people where inside, too bad, because they’re really talented. Their second album “What Hell is About” got rewarding reviews in the press and I would describe their sound as a mix of Metalcore and Deathmetal which is very effective. They also put some Industrial influences in their music as could be heard for instance in the opening song of their show, “Die Tomorrow”. These long repeating Industrial riffs with atmospheric background samples really add to the music. The sound was ok and the band was full of energy. This paid off; they were getting some good reactions from the audience but unfortunately only at the last song, which also was the only song played from their debut, there where enough people to get a nice pit going.

Then it was time for Sepultura to enter the stage, unfortunately without Igor Cavelera because he stayed in Brazil to spent some time with his new born son. This was disappointment for me, but I was quite happy with his replacement by Roy Mayorga who previously drummed in Max’s Soulfly. Man, he really rips up his drum kit; this guy puts so much energy in his drumming. With almost every hit he lifts his arms above his head, which you can definitely hear in the music and it’s fantastic to see. They opened with the first song from their latest album, “Darkwood of Error”, with the long opening riff built up the tension very well. From the moment that Derrick Green started to sing the place exploded and this was what the whole show would be like. You can really see that Sepultura is feeling well and Derrick Green totally grew into being the frontman, it definitely pays off in their live show and on “Dante XXI”. The sound was perfect and off course all the classic came by such as “Roots” and “Refuse/Resist”, but also some real old songs like “Beneath the Remains”, which Andreas introduced with mentioning their first show in the Netherlands some 16 years ago. They even played “Troops of Doom” on which Derrick also handled the guitar. It was an amazing performance which proved that Sepultura is in really good shape.

In Flames had the honour to close the night. It’s always a bit hard to get the audience going for the full 100% when such a big band like Sepultura supports you, first because a lot of people especially came to see Sepultura and second because people just haven’t got as much energy any more. Though In Flames got enough people bouncing and moshing to create a good vibe from the first song they played, which surprisingly to me wasn’t a song form their latest album “Come Clarity”. They started off with “Pinball Map”, which was a good opener, but I was a bit disappointed with the sound. I especially came to this show to see In Flames, but I must say that I was more convinced of the power of Sepultura. It seemed to me that Anders and his mates where doing a routine show, without much surprises in the set list, though it was fun to see that he took a camera from someone of the front row and made some close-up pictures from his band mates. The show was spiced up with some great pyrotechnics which started in the song “System”; it would be used several times in the show and also some firework would be added later. It was nice to see but unfortunately the band itself didn’t come up with some real firework. The night closed with a big bang and a lot of snippets of paper raining down on the audience during “My Sweet Shadow”. The show didn’t turn out as I expected, but in total I had a fantastic night!