SKYWAY THEATER in Minneapolis, MN
Sept 17, 2022
with FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY, ORBIT CULTURE and VENDED
Photos by Brett Zisler
Review by Nick
The Skyway Theater in Minneapolis was bustling with metal heads filing in for IN FLAMES' post covid return to Minneapolis. In Flames brought with them a stellar supoprt package of FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY and upcoming bands ORBIT CULTURE and VENDED.
100% honesty here .. this is the best I've seen IN FLAMES live in YEARS. The band has a new fire underneath them with Chris Broadrick joining the band on guitars. Opening with the fantastic new single "The Great Deciever", you could see the smiles on everyone's faces in the band to the fans who were clearly enjoying the new tune. The band continued on with "Fear is the Weakness" and a massive crowd sing-a-long for "Cloud Connected".
IN FLAMES then went thru their entire catalog playing one song from every album starting with "Stand Ablaze" from Subterraian and "Beyond Space" from The Lunar Strain. These songs sounded absolutely phenominal with Chris Broadrick joining Bjorn Gelotte on guitars, Bryce Paul on bass and Tanner Wayne on drums. This is an extremely tight and focused band that pulls off the older, perhaps more technical and faster material with absolute ease. Anders Friden still can scream just as great as he does on the old records. Anders was just as happy to see the crowd as the crowd was to see them, chatting it up with the crowd in between songs with some great banter.
Who honestly can argue with "Episode 666" or "Only for the Weak" live? Those songs sounded just as phenominal live as the new songs "Foregone pt 1" and "State of Slow Decay" did that followed. If this is any indication of what we're in store for with the new album Foregone, we may be headed for IN FLAMES' best record in years!
Ending their set with some of their strongest most recent material "Deliver Us", "The Mirror's Truth" and "I Am Above" before the song that it seemed like everyone in the crowd wanted to hear "Take This Life" got a huge pop from the audience. The band had a great stage set up with a great light show that didn't blind you. After seeing a condensed 40 minute version of this set at Louder Than Life a few days later, IN FLAMES is back and on fire. The next time they come thru town which will probably be next year after the new album comes out in Feb, don't sleep on catching IN FLAMES live.
Quick shout out to ORBIT CULTURE from Sweeden who had a monster of a 30 minute set playing tracks from all their releases. Blending the extremely heavy with the melodic got the crowd moving and definately made new fans. "Strangler", "Vultures of North" and "Saw" sounded massive live with vocalist Niklas Karlsson effortlessly going between monsterous growling and extremely melodic vocals. If you are a fan of Gojira and haven't checked out ORBIT CULTURE yet, what are you waiting for? This is going to be a band that fans in 3-5 years will be saying ... "Remember that time we saw them at the Skyway Theater on their first U.S. tour?"
As did VENDED, who's frontman Griffin Taylor celebrated his birthday in Minneapolis with family and friends in attendance. VENDED have the stage presence down and drummer Simon Crahan crushes the drums with incredible precesion. Not to mention, guitarist Cole Espeland looks like a rock star already. I'm very excited to see what the future holds for VENDED as they are putting in the work on the road going from touring with Code Orange to In Flames and this winter with Jinjer (Nov 5th at The Fillmore in Minneapolis, MN). Grinding it out on the road will only make this band stronger.
SEE MORE OF BRETT'S PHOTOS FROM IN FLAMES AT THE SKYWAY THEATER HERE!
IN FLAMES' new album "Foregone" can be pre-ordered/pre-saved here! Album out Feb 10.
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