Kreator @ The Metro Theatre, Sydney 24 September 2009
Only having one support act seems a trifle insufficient for a band of Kreator’s standing – insulting even – but that’s what confronts us Thursday night at the Metro Theatre. Still, it looks to be a promising evening. I have never, in fact, seen such a huge line to get into the Metro before, and that’s always a good sign as it suggests that the opening band is worth giving a shit about. That honour goes to Sydney’s Mortal Sin, a band that have been kicking around for nearly as long as Kreator. They do themselves proud. Though, unfortunately, by the time we get past the line and into the venue we’ve missed half their set – and of the half we do see most of it is taken up by that marvel of the rock n’ roll genre, the thrash metal ballad.

Kreator are up and after an introductory instrumental we are informed that we are due for roughly eighty minutes of pain or torture – I can’t remember what the singer, Petrozza, said, but it was definitely unsavoury. A cursory look at the Kreator set-list reveals that the band has, save for one song, decided to overlook their critically panned experimental years in favour of their heavier thrash material. It is, arguably, a good decision, and once the band gets started, they don’t let up, though to be sure, the mosh pit that Petrozza repeatedly calls for never quite eventuates.

Petrozza handles the crowd interaction, introducing the songs with a touch of bile. For example, Petrozza introduces “Enemy of God” by asking (to be read: “demanding to know”) who follows a religion. The question was rhetorical. I could tell. OK, so Kreator aren’t for the whole pluralism thing. And if the introduction to “Pleasure to Kill” is anything to go by, neither are they for Peace, Love & Understanding. Oh, and journalists don’t rate either. It was just the sort of misanthropy that the audience was craving and the exact sort of misanthropy Kreator were primed to deliver.

A drum solo greets us after the first and only encore, and though the whole exercise seems a little – if not contrived – then certainly dated. The audience loves it. The gig closes out with three more songs, “Warcurse,” taken from the newest record, Hordes of Chaos, and two older tunes, “Flag of Hate” and “Tormentor,” with the former becoming in itself a debacle. When the flag of hate, waved perhaps a little too hatefully, falls off its pole with all the dignity of a wet fart, it’s up to a sheepish Petrozza, helpfully spelling h-a-t-e, to regain the momentum.

Just before Mortal Sin take their leave of the stage they dedicate their last song to Kreator. A song that they claim was written in the “glory days” of thrash. There is something poignant about this sentiment. Thrash, as a genre, will never occupy the same status it did in the eighties and nineties. The glory days are indeed gone. Kids these days are too aloof, too hip. However, the fact that the gig was all-ages and that the average age of the punters was roughly twenty years younger than that of both bands, suggests that there might be some life in thrash yet. At any rate, what we witnessed that night was one of the legends of the genre, and when just on midnight we are ejected back onto the streets of Sydney after roughly eighty minutes of pain or torture or whatever, we realise that it was pretty goddamn good.

Vittorio E.