They might have been a bit late but Benediction, Holy Moses and Nominon truly crushed us last night. The metalheads’ bus caught on fire near Leipzig, Germany, and played the same trick twice again after passing the Bulgarian-Romanian border on the way from Ruse to Sofia. And that’s why the officially announced start time for the show (8 PM) turned into just a fine wish. The dudes arrived around 9 and headed for the club under the applause of the crowd gathered in front of the place. It took them yet another hour to set up the drumset, amps, monitors and to make a soundcheck. Doing this so fast is a display of heroism. Yet again this extra hour (that was the 2nd extra hour after the announced start time) came too long fro the crowd that was still outside in the October cold. People started rushing in only to be denied by the security guards….

Anyway sometime around 10 they started letting them in. Nominon from Sweden took the stage at the same time. People were coming in throughout their whole set and that’s why many people missed them. Which is a pity, since the dudes delivered a solid performance. Oldschool death metal with no compromise – powerful riffs, fast parts, guttural roaring vocals, lots of headbanging. Ace! It’s sad people missed them even though they were far from being the main course for the evening.

Next were the German thrash metal veterans Holy Moses, led by Sabina Classen. Just like Agnostic Front’s Roger Miret half a year ago she was wearing a t-shirt that said “I love BG”. In this is how in the spirit of love and friendship heavyweight thrash metal shots started pouring on top of the enthusiastic audience. Sabina ran around the stage (and it’s a big scene there in “Blue box”) and headbanged like insane all the time. Ane despite the warm welcome by the crowd that moshed like no tomorrow Holy Moses played a rather short set.

A short one because they were an aperetiff for the main course as well. Benediction, as clich? as it sounds TOTALLY CRUSHED US! With sound. With stage presence. With attitude. They started with the intro from their last album, followed by “The Grey Man”. This was followed by songs from almost all their back catalogue like “Agonised”, “The Dreams You Dread”, “They Must Die Screaming”, “I Bow To None” and so on. A serious moshpit formed before the stage and it didn’t stop until the show ended.

Besides the moshing the fans also tried to stagedive which  wasn’t by the security guards’ liking. It came to the point when Benediction themselves had to explain to the guards that they don’t have a problem with people doing this. The dudes didn’t end here but also had to remind us that the video for “Killing Music” was shot in Bulgaria, before playing the song, and that the picture under the CD in their latest release is again from this live. They also performed an extra 4 songs more than their standard setlist for this tour in gratitude to their Bulgarian fans. There were no encores because, as Dave Hunt explained, Benediction don’t like to fuck around with their fans and pretend they’re playing something extra because of the applause. Just normal people communicating normally. And that’s why they have our eternal respect!

Report:В Stefan TopuzovВ 

Photos:В Victor AlexandrovВ 

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