Sabaton Show Reviews

[sean-intense]

Live for Metal (thanks to James Young)

An early Sabaton ferry meant that English support band Intense had the difficult task of playing last, after the headliners. Any other band may have struggled, but Intense have quite a large fan base, and a reasonable number of people stayed through to the end of their set, which reflects the fact that they are worth seeing. Their thrashy mix of power and heavy metal in tracks such as ‘Fear Is Not Enough’ and ‘Trojan Transmission’ brought Iced Earth to mind, and were therefore great to bang your head to. There wasn’t much room to move around on stage due to space constraints, but there was enough energy in Sean Hetherington’s actions and voice to make up for this, whilst the crowd were still giving it their all despite running on empty. The closer, fan favourite ‘War Of Angels’ saw one last flurry of power metal intensity, with the track sounding powerful, even if the Nevermore-inspired layered vocals were difficult to pull off live. An enjoyable set, even if rather the timing issues were rather unfortunate for Intense, although they can always say they headlined the show!
A fantastic night in all, and certainly one that will be remembered by every single power metaller in attendance. Be sure to catch Sabaton in 2009 supporting Hammerfall and at Bloodstock - if not, there’ll be war!

Full Link http://www.live4metal.com/live-28.htm

 

[sean-intense]

Rockers Digest (Who Rock)

Poor Intense, before taking their late slot, were now tasked to set up from scratch with the Sabaton gear packed up for transit. Doing a sterling job to turn things around as quick as they could, there was a respectful gathering as the UK metallers opened with Fear Is Not Enough from their latest album As Our Army Grows. Crammed onto the small stage, somehow the six piece turn out to be the most mobile act of the night and seemed to be enjoying their time on stage and making the best of the less than ideal position of having to follow the “headline” act. Opening the show, Intense would certainly have given the Grailknights a run for their money and would have made for a more balanced evening, however this was obviously out of their hands and full credit again to Sinister Heart for ensuring they got to play at all.

With a whiff of Iced Earth in the air, Trojan Transmission provides us with an excerpt from the band’s trilogy tribute to David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, whilst Dark Season takes us all the way back to the band’s 1997 debut album. Frontman, Sean Hetherington puts his all into the chorus refrain “As our army grows” from Our Last Hope, but with last trains beckoning, including my own, annoyingly people are having to leave. War of Angels was scheduled to close the band’s set though having dashed off I can’t confirm and was personally hoping to hear Anger Of The Ancients and The Winged. Intense certainly put on a spirited performance under difficult circumstances.

Intense set list:
Fear Is Not Enough / Collision Of Destinies / Trojan Transmission / Dark Season / Our Last Hope / War Of Angels


Full Link http://www.rockersdigest.com/reviews/259/Sabaton-Grailknights-Intense

 

[sean-intense]

MTUK Paul Maddison

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]It was inevitable that ‘Intense’ were going to suffer with crowd numbers, but then public transport is not really friendly to late night revellers in London, especially those who have travelled huge distances tonight. Anyway, for those of us who remained, it was a welcomed return. Not having seen this band live for just over 3 years now, I was welcomed with a different line up, but the ever-strong vocal talents of Sean Hetherington still very much present and accounted for, and it was so pleasing to see that this band decided to stay true to their roots and not follow the commercial hit-finding route as so many bands have tried to do. Stage performance is energetic and is boosted with a good live sound, even with the fastest turnaround of back line and equipment in history. A new album track in the form of ‘Fear is Not Enough’ shows the band moving forward with maturity and ever evolving class, whilst tracks like ‘Collision of Destinies’ from their ‘Second Sight’ album keeps the loyal fans happy. Unfortunately I was suffering the wrath of train services, and had to leave during their set, but not before ‘Trojan Transmission’. Still, I hope we have an ‘Intense’ experience on the live circuit again soon, a job well done. [/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]www.myspace.com/intense
www.intense-uk.com[/SIZE][/FONT]

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Full Link
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http://www.metalteamuk.net/review-sabaton.htm
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[Andiferum]

Great reviews. Glad I had the opportunity to catch the whole thing.