Back at Nummirock 2017, I accidentally stumbled across the mighty King Satan, who wound up being my highlight of the entire festival. Deciding at the last minute with some friends to check them out, the tiny Original tent stage was pretty much crammed to capacity – perhaps helped by the torrential rain outside – and despite us being squashed in like sardines, we spent the vast majority of their all-too-short set dancing about and basically having an amazing time discovering this talented band.
Fast forward to 2023 and after six years of hoping there would be a return appearance, finally the stage was set for the King Satan 2023 reunion with some of my friends I discovered them with the first time around. Although technically on the same stage, this time it was rebranded as the ‘Kaaos Klubi’ with a much better layout and seemingly a lot more space due to the stage not being crammed into the corner of the tent, which was a lot better for both visibility and dancing space!
After the intro filled the tent, King Satan wasted no time in launching straight into the first full song of the set, Left Hand Path Symphony, from their lastest album Occult Spiritual Anarchy. Having not heard any of the band’s newer material live, I was particularly excited to see how the material translated live. Of course, they blew it out of the water. It doesn’t matter when or where I see this talented band; no matter what the location, they always absolutely slay onstage.
The set progressed well from there, with a good mix of both older and newer material with a slight emphasis on the latest release for obvioius reasons. The choice of songs was fantastic (literally every time they started a new song I would proclaim to my friends “I love this one!” – probably would have been easier just to say I loved them all!) and the flow from one song to the next was fantastic. It didn’t matter I didn’t understand what was being said onstage because the way each song progressed to the next was masterful. The Faces Of The Devil and Fuck Yoga worked especially well next to one another.
Our highlight actually ended up being the closing song of the set, Satanized (Praise Hail Satan!), which was perhaps due to a heavy dose of nostalgia as that had been one of our favourites in 2017 also! It brought back all the happy memories we made in 2017 and brought them full circle, with that euphoric hit being the perfect way to close up a truly triumphant show.
Once again, King Satan proved to be my highlight of the festival – which is no mean feat because I saw some seriously good shows over the course of the festival. This is a band you absolutely have to see live. Already counting down to next time!
Upcoming King Satan live dates
08/09 Kuopio, Finland (Circus)
09/09 Turku, Finland (Utopia)
15/09 Jyväskylä, Finland (Lutakko)
30/10 Tampere, Finland (Olympia)
31/10 Helsinki, Finland (Tavastia)
02/11 Zoetermeer, Netherlands (Boerderij)
03/11 Essen, Germany (Turock)
04/11 Paris, France (Backstage)
06/11 Manchester, UK (Rebellion)
07/11 Glasgow, UK (Ivory Black)
08/11 Birmingham, UK (Asylum)
09/11 London, UK (The Dome)
10/11 Pagney-derriere-Barine (Chez Paulette)
11/11 Gent, Belgium (Asgaard)
12/11 Heerlen, Netherlands (Nieuwe Nor)
