March 07, 2023
Despite the chilly March evening in Montreal, the line for the sold out Rotting Christ show reached around the block by the time doors opened.
Modern black metal band Gaerea are on their first North America tour and they are absolutely killing it. They wowed the audience with complex guitar work, blast beats, and Guilherme Henriques‘s disconcerting creature-esque dance moves. The combination of the uniform masks and his emotionally evocative performance of languid reaches and movements across the stage made it difficult to look away during the set. They led the venue in the first wall of death of the night, which was enthusiastically received by the crowd.
Carach Angren puts on a very theatrical horror metal show with melodic orchestrations and harsh vocals covering a range of monstrous topics including ghosts, vampires, and necromancers. The audience was really getting into it with several crowd surfers and a raging put during the show.
Up next, Uada kicked off with their ritualistic smudging of the stage and then brought a more relaxed and atmospheric vibe to the venue that lulled everyone into a trance fueled by fog and fierce black metal vocals and laced with intricate guitar work.
As the Greek metal legends Rotting Christ walked onstage, the crowd was starting to amp back up and get ready for their chugging bass lines, fast drumming, melodic guitars, and captivating stage shows. Frontman Sakis Tolis leads the crowd in the more ritualistic parts of the set, including the chanting intro of the exorcism song, Apage Satana. Meanwhile Kostas Heliotis amps up the crowd during the breaks in his fierce bass playing. If you’ve never joined a Rotting Christ pit, you are missing out, as they are both intense and intensely fun. The pit got started shortly after the set and raged until the closing moments of the show. The band themselves are clearly having a great time on stage, moving around, headbanging, and laughing together throughout the set and their energy draws the audience in to the fast paced journey of their set.
