Live review: Dimmu Borgir, Amorphis and Wolves in the Throne Room at 013, Tilburg, The Netherlands, January 25th, 2020

It was cold last Saturday when I was on my way to 013 in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Three bands were going to perform there that evening with the last band of the evening, Dimmu Borgir, perfectly fitting the cold weather. It was time for the co-headline tour of Dimmu Borgir and Amorphis, with the Norwegian symphonic black metallers closing off the evening. As support they brought Wolves in the Throne Room.

I already saw Amorphis perform live once before, that was last year on FortaRock, of which you can read my live review here. Wolves in the Throne Room as well as Dimmu Borgir both were on my list of bands that I haven’t seen live, but really wanted to. Now both bands can get off of that list, since I’ve now seen them perform live, although I unfortunately only saw the last song of Wolves in the Throne Room’s show, which still was around 8 minutes, due to quite a lot of delay while travelling to Tilburg. Once I was inside the venue, where Wolves in the Throne Room was already playing for a while, it was already very crowded and there was a thick fog of incense and smoke. A huge wall of lingering guitars, heavily pounding drums and chilling screams of Nathan Weaver as well as Kody Keyworth, who sometimes screamed together while they alternated on other moments, raged through the venue, accompanied by a very hectic, very fitting lightshow.

After Wolves in the Throne Room’s show it was up to the only non-black metal band of the evening, Amorphis, to enter the stage. Amorphis also pounded quite heavily on various moments, with especially Jan Rechberger’s deep sounding drums standing out. These pounding parts in Amorphis’ show often included brutal, heavy growls of frontman Tomi Joutsen, with guitarist Tomi Koivusaari at some moments joining him with his grunts. However, Amorphis’ show is quite in contrast compared to the show of Wolves in the Throne Room. That’s mainly due to the less heavy, more melodic parts in Amorphis’ show, which is something they very well combine with the heavier pounding parts though. During those more melodic parts we’ll also hear frontman Tomi Joutsen sing with clean vocals. Personally, I wouldn’t mind that being used a little less, but that’s just a matter of personal taste. That doesn’t say anything about the quality of those vocals, because those sure are very nicely executed. The crowd also sings along during quite a lot of moments, which makes clear that it is very well appreciated, something I also saw during their show on FortaRock. In addition to Tomi’s vocals, the solos of guitarist Esa Holopainen and the regular use of the keyboard by Santeri Kallio, which is sometimes very present, while being more subtle present on other moments, are also standing out. Unfortunately the mix is somewhat shrill during the first songs, but fortunately this gets better during the show.

Then it’s time for the last show of this evening, which is quite in contrast with Amorphis’ show. The Norwegian symphonic black metallers of Dimmu Borgir may also have a keyboard on stage, which is much used by keyboardist Gerlioz (Brat), and they also pound quite heavily, but that would be the only two similarities between both shows, although these similarities only being semi-similarities. That’s because Dimmu Borgir pounds heavily during their entire set, where Amorphis did alternate that with more calm, melodic parts and both bands indeed use keys in their music, but the way in which those are used clearly differs a lot. The mix is very good during Dimmu Borgir’s show, which sounds perfect from start to finish, with a few moments in which the bass droned a bit too loud as exception to this. What stood out the most before the band members entered the stage was the huge drum kit of Daray which, as we could hear during the show, gave a very nice deep sound creating the basis for the huge amount of heavy pounding of this show. That pounding combined with the very symphonic sounding keys of Gerlioz (Brat) create a bombastic whole that thunders through the venue and visibly is much liked by a big part of the audience, looking at the many fists that regularly are thrown in the air and the many people headbanging. On top of that bombastic pounding frontman Shagrath spits out his raw screams that very well fit in. This was a very nice closing show of this very nice evening, with one thing not being mentioned yet while it is something I can’t leave unmentioned and that are the very nice stage outfits Dimmu Borgir were wearing during this show.

This Saturday evening for sure was worth enduring the cold temperatures outside, with three very nice shows of which I unfortunately missed quite a big part of Wolves in the Throne Room’s one, but what I did see was very nice for sure.

You can read our other live reviews of Amorphis here (FortaRock, which I already mentioned), here (013, Tilburg) and here (Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam).

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