Walking down the queue past tonight’s venue, it would not seem at all that it’s Ghost’s first time in Brighton. The number of completely devoted fans covering their jackets in nothing but the Ghost logo, dressing up as nuns and emulating Papa’s corpse paint is astounding and shows the absolute awe Ghost command at this point in their career.
The building is illustrious and grandiose, a nice change of pace from the grimy venues that the attendees today are used to. I think this demonstrates a crucial defining element of Ghost. Their accessibility. Perhaps I’m jumping the gun here but I really believe that Ghost are going to be one of those bands that go from strength to strength (as they are at the moment), simultaneously drawing many people into our world.
Anyway, I’m getting carried away. Tonight’s support band are the widely unknown Zombi, taking to the stage shortly after 8pm as people begin to filter in. Theirs is an odd sound; a two piece composed of synthesizer/bass player Steve Moore and drummer Anthony Paterra who play a peculiar hybrid of progressive techno rock classed as “Synthwave”.
Without vocals or the theatrics that people are here to see, they are received with mixed feelings. The musicians in the room can appreciate what they’re doing but sadly it seems lost on a lot of the crowd who are just here to praise Satan.
And that they do. Our headliners tonight do not do things half-arsed, even the drum tech bows before doing his ritual as the beautiful stage backdrop of satanic church windows is revealed. Incense burns to set the mood as my little group tonight are refreshing Metal Hammer’s Facebook page to see the third and final headliner for Bloodstock. As you’ll know by now, it’s Ghost (despite it being their first appearance at the festival!).
The excitement that saturated the room was thick upon this realisation and when they break onto stage promptly at quarter past nine into stadium flattener “Square Hammer” and people lock arms and throw their arms to the sky. I cannot help but feel that they are my band. This is the breakout band we’ve been looking out for this whole time. Going straight into “Pinnacle To The Pit” is a wise move and does not let the congregation even catch its breath. They follow this with a cluster of the best from Opus Eponymous and Infestissumam although there is no mistake in saying a large amount of people are here because of Meliora, not that there aren’t pockets of people losing their minds to the likes of “Con Clavi Con Dio”.
A quick change by Papa feeds into “Cirice”, another crowd favourite and from there, there’s a run of absolutely blinding tracks including “Year Zero”, “He Is”, “Absolution” and Mummy Dust”. It’s the awe inspiring “He Is” that takes the show tonight, though. Papa stands centre stage leading us through the song with utter conviction as our arms stretch out to The Dark Lord.
“Absolution” is a lot heavier live than on record which goes down a treat as does “Mummy Dust” that Papa introduces as “Some heavy fucking shit”. The flowing of the songs resemble that of a well oiled mechanism and plays right into their hands that we feast out of. Papa successfully walks the fine line of stage banter and messianic royalty without batting an eyelid. The theatricality is absolutely on point tonight too, the standard of their shows has skyrocketed in recent times, transcending the appearance of a band playing music. To the crowd tonight, it is much more than that.
Papa introduces the encore “Monstrance Clock” as an orgasm unsurprisingly, his logic being that they close their sets with it every night which may be seen as repetitive but still brilliant. Gross. To be fair though, it was pretty orgasmic. The stage tonight is the only place you’ll hear “Who wants to celebrate the female orgasm in the name of Satan?”.
The only teeny little niggle that sits with me is that I wish they had played more off Popestar considering the tour is in support of it. Perhaps I’m the only one that really enjoyed the rest of the songs on there (bar “Nocturnal Me”) but “Missionary Man” would’ve been amazing!. Nevertheless, they exit the stage in a flurry of magnificence.
Rest assured that with one more album on par with Meliora, they will be headlining Download. This is the band that’s going to act as a gateway into metal for wider society, leading us on a glorious, twisted road to the gates of Hell and bring metal out of the dirty clubs to bright stages such as the one tonight. We can’t wait.
Ghost: official | facebook | twitter | instagram | youtube
Zombi: facebook | twitter | bandcamp | last.fm | soundcloud
