Deliverance........

is alone well worth the price of admission.

Tonight I was in attendance in yet another Opeth concert - never has another band, apart from Iron Maiden, evoked such a string emotional response from me. I've seen them every year starting in Philadelphia from when I scrounged around for a few months to be able to afford the ticket. Their live shows are just pure destruction - they do not use any stage gimmicks, no eye candy, no lasers, no video shows on LCD screens etc but just on the strenght of their mighty music, they draw in the legions. Opeth is the fucking best!!!

Tonight's set was blistering!!! From the opening heavy (and I mean fucking heavy!) brooding "Heir Apparent" to the slower, softer "Hope Leaves" to the hypnotic, psychedelic "Closure" concluding in the staple "Deliverance", Opeth was absolutely the greatest! They played some old songs that I haven't heard them play before - "Godhead's Lament", "The Night and the Silent Water".

The mosh pits were insane - there were two roiling pits of hair, flesh and blood. I managed to survive 30 minutes in one of them but not without some collateral damage - a sore, swollen knee from when a behemoth tackled me, bringing me to the ground and a massive red purple bruise in the small of my back where someone headbutted me. I did some damage of my own too, as they always say at the end of a fight, "You should have seen the other guy!". As far as I could tell, 15 people succumbed to the insanity and intensity of the mosh pit. They were escorted away with bleeding noses and other injuries.

Opeth was absolute dynamite tonight and I was honored to have been part of this ritual.