Swedish heavy metal band Ghost came to Norwich to kick off the European leg of their ‘Popestar’ tour and delivered a show that will live long in the memory of the locals. In fact, it will be a very long time before this city sees such a spectacle again, if they ever do.
The evening started slowly with support act Zombi falling flat. The American “synthwave” two-piece may have been picked due to the lack of space left on stage; with Ghost’s large stage set-up only leaving a few feet at the front of the normally spacious UEA LCR stage. With just drums, synthesizers and the occasional bass guitar the duo didn’t need much room.
The duo were given a generous 45 minutes in which to warm up the audience, sadly looking around the venue I could only see about 45 people paying much interest in their performance. That’s not to say that they weren’t good at what they did, but with an audience awaiting the outlandish metal of Ghost, “synthwave” whatever that is, was far from what they wanted from a support act.
Thankfully the atmosphere soon turned into one of anticipation as haunting music filled the venue. The level of detail that goes into a Ghost show is incredible. Before the band were anywhere near taking to the stage, the venue was transformed into their church. From the haunting music to the way the crew prepare the stage, every aspect is carefully planned; the venue was even filled with burning incense!
By the time the Nameless Ghouls took to the stage the atmosphere was electric and the choice of opener couldn’t have been any better. As soon as the opening notes of ‘Square Hammer’ filled the air the venue erupted and as singer Papa Emeritus III appeared from a puff of smoke it became clear that it would be a special show.
As I mentioned every aspect and every detail of a Ghost show is carefully planned. This includes the impressive stage and the look and mannerisms of the Nameless Ghouls. There were smoke and confetti cannons, and at one point there were even Nuns (or Sisters of Sin) delivering Holy Communion to the front row. The show side of a Ghost gig truly is a spectacle, but what about the music?
Well this is a Grammy winning band after all, so the music is pretty decent as well. Their third album ‘Meliora’, released in 2015, has been hailed as a masterpiece and with it boosting tracks such as ‘Cirice’ and ‘He Is’, I’m not going to argue that. Both of those songs sounded massive in Norwich as did pretty much every song for that matter.
The set list was a mixture from all three studio albums and early track ‘Ritual’ brought the main set to an immense finish. An encore of ‘Monstrance Clock’ would bring the evening to a close and leave the crowd begging for more, and that’s all a band can ever really ask for. I’m sure that everyone in the audience would pay to see that spectacle again. This is definitely not a show to be missed.