After being seriously impressed by King Satan’s performance at Nummirock last year, I knew I had to go and see them again now that I knew all their songs. So when they announced their first European tour, I decided to had to try and make it to one of their shows. The way my work shifts aligned meant that seeing them in Bucharest was my only real option, so I had to deal with precarious flight connections and an airport bus that I couldn’t find a stop for in the city centre – but needless to say, it was absolutely worth it and I’d do it again in a heartbeat!
When King Satan took to the stage in Fabrica, they opened proceedings with Dance With The Devil (the opener of their debut album King Fucking Satan and it blew me away again. After listening to their debut album so much, I’d come to forget how much of a kick their music has in a live environment. I adore their album but live, their music sounds evven better. It’s got a little more heaviness too it whilst the electronic lines hit you like a tonne of bricks – and it’s fucking fantastic. A band that can deliver the goods on their album whilst also managing to surpass it live is the best sort of band.
The set as a whole was excellent and the way the band moved as a single unit was awesome. There was a good, solid tightness to their performance and it was wonderful to be a part of, and it was especially good when some of the members left the stage and performed in front of the stage because it felt like the music couldn’t quite be confined to the space of the stage. (Also their drummer Sir Changa McKenna played so hard that at one point he had to leave to get some more sticks since he’d broken his!)
Highlights of the performance included Enter Black Fire, the aforementioned Dance With The Devil and Psygnosis, which was especially good because I even got invited to join in with yelling “fuck the rest, Satan is best”! 😉 We were also treated to a new song (I think it was called Fuck Yoga or something sounding quite similar…!) which was seriously kickass and certainly set the bar high for what we can come to expect on album number two. And of course the closing track Spiritual Anarchy was excellent – the back and forth vocals between King Aleister Satan and Kate Boss were very strong and of course the reprise of fuck the rest, Satan is best was always going to be a pleasure to witness.
All in all, a phenomenal night. I think I enjoyed them even more than I did at Nummirock, owing to the fact I was familiar with their music this time around, and the performance definitely left me wanting more – so hopefully it won’t be too long until I get the chance to see them again. Fuck the rest, hail Bucharest!
10/10
