The flames are burning again. After releasing their seventh studio album “Come Clarity”, which is regarded as being a step back to their roots, In Flames hit the European roads once more. Since “Reroute to Remain” and “Soundtrack to Your Escape” many of their old fans have turned their backs on them but In Flames aren’t out of business yet and this tour very much gives proof of this. In fact, this tour has been the biggest headlining tour for the five Swedes ever with most shows being sold out or almost sold out. I was lucky to catch their second German show in Cologne. I was a bit sceptical in the beginning though when I read that Sepultura were going to be the support. Support? Sepultura? You could really ask yourself here which band was the bigger one, especially since the Chimaira/Dark Tranquillity tour at the end of 2005 has shown that things could be upside down.

Well, the actual support act was the French band Dagoba. Their mix of death and trash metal with partly clean vocals and partly growls couldn’t really warm up the audience. I wished them gone because I was so much looking forward to In Flames and to my astonishment they really left the stage after only four or five songs. I’ve never seen such a short show of a support act but maybe that was due to the late starting time (about 8.30 on a Monday night).

So it was time for Sepultura. I have to admit that I belong to the sort of people that only have the “Chaos AD” album and are perfectly satisfied with that. However, their live show totally blew me away. The songs carry such an energy when they are performed that you can’t help but headbang, jump around or join the moshpit which many people did. The show started with a furious instrumental intro played by Andreas Kisser, Paolo Jr. and Igor… wait, that wasn’t Igor Cavalera behind the drums. I knew the band well enough to notice that this red and black haired buy behind the kit wasn’t their regular drummer. As I found out later, Igor wasn’t taking part in this tour because of his new born son. So Roy Mayorga (ex-Soulfly) was filling in for him. He surely was a worthy replacement and he worked well with rest of the band. After the intro, singer Derrick finally entered to stage and from then on he was the centre of attraction throughout the show. He did his best at cheering the crowd after every song and thanked the audience many times with a German “danke schön”. During two songs he even picked up the guitar. I have to say that I liked the double guitar sound a lot and that they should do that more often. Well their set featured hits like “Refuse/Resist” –which I was very pleased to her- and “Roots” and of course a hand full of songs from the new album “Dante XXI”. Many were disappointed though that the band didn’t play “Territory” which had originally been on the set list as I found out later.

After Sepultura left, the stage was prepared for In Flames. A white curtain was hung up and some really weird music was played. I wonder if that is just the DJ’s “special” sense of humour but I’ve noticed that several times on recent concerts. Well, who knows. Another funny thing was that I could spot two men in uniforms behind the stage that seemed very excited about the huge crowd. They turned out to be local fire fighters (you will see later why they were there).

If you thought that it couldn’t get any better after Sepultura, then In Flames would show that they could outdo them. Their show was the best I’ve seen in a long time. I was a bit surprised to see Anders Fridén in a punk-like outfit but why not. In Flames have always done their own thing and as long as they do it well, I won’t complain – and believe me, there was nothing to complain about. The band had an incredible light show put together, selected their best songs to form a set list that made pretty much everyone happy and gave a great show which included the usual “let’s all headbang together in sync”. I’ve really just seen that with this band and I love it.

Right at the beginning of the show during their opener “Pinball Map”, there was a first highlight when some pyro effects went off (that’s what the fire fighters were there for) which continued later during the show. As I already mentioned, the crowd was crazy and I was just among them trying to hold on to something or someone with one hand having my camera in the other hand taking pictures. I could barely hold the camera still so I was more than surprised to see the outcome. Concerning the set list I was fully satisfied. In Flames played a nice mix of all their great old songs like “System”, “Behind Space” “Trigger”, “Cloud Connected” and “The quite Place” and of course tracks from the New Album like “Take this Life” and “Come Clarity”, a wonderful ballad-like song that I quite enjoyed to hear live. The show ended after “My Sweet Shadow” with a furious showdown that included pyros and confetti falling down on the audience. Unfortunately, there’s was no encore but the show had been so perfectly planned that there really wasn’t a need for it! I have to say that this was the best In Flames concert I’ve been to and probably one of the best concerts ever. Keep it burning guys!

Set list:

Pinball Map
Leeches
System
Trigger
Inspid 2000
Behind Space
Colony
Crawl Through Knives
Black and White
Take this Life
Come Clarity
Scream
Cloud Connected
Bullet Ride
Drifter
Moonshield
Episode 666
Only for the Weak
Vacuum
The Quiet Place
Touch of Red
My Sweet Shadow