| Doors: 7 pm | Show: 8 pm | Tickets: 28,50 EUR plus fees |

Good things come to those who wait, one could say. In August Swedish occult rockers GHOST released their third effort, Meliora, and started an extensive tour circuit. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to one of those shows. Damn. But someone seemed to have played its part and a 3-week-tour -seconds got added for February. And here we are ;) The show tonight might not have been better, or worse, than the ones of the previous tour, but definitely different. Because tonight we did not just see GHOST, nope, we saw Grammy Award winners GHOST. Yep, it’s true, 5 days ago GHOST have won the Grammy in the "Best Metal Performance" category. Congratulations guys!

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So, tonight we were the lucky ones to enjoy a Grammy-honored live show. The place to be for this event was the :: X :: in Herford, a club I in fact really like but attend at rare intervals only. What I definitely did not like was the club’s time management or wrong time announcements respectively.

Arriving on time at the X I had to realize that the support band :: DEAD SOUL :: was already over the mid of their set. Sorry, but no photos here. I haven’t heard of DEAD SOUL before. As read, it is a collaboration between Anders Landelius and Niels Nielsen that has started in 2012. Visually I immediately got John Garcia in mind. Musically there surely elements to find too. DEAD SOUL’s music gets described as: Dark Electronic (Industrial respectively) Doom Blues ;) Well… one possibility. The music is dark, yes, and bluesy too. There is a bit of electronic, and they have those desert/Western touch. But DEAD SOUL have definitely nothing to do with Industrial and NIN (as referred). And I liked voice and singing. It was only a short impression I got from the Swedes, and so far I really liked their music.

Well then… no photos, no work - time to meet friends, to check out the merchandise (which was quite expensive) and to have a drink. Already at 8.15 pm (official show begin was announced for 8pm) Miserere Mei, Deus, and the Masked Ball heralded for the ceremony, then :: GHOST :: thunderously kicked off with the opening duo Spirit and From The Pinnacle To The Pit from the highly rated Meliora album. Um… thunderously? It rather was a purring kick off. To be honest, I think singing and production on Meliora is quite thin and I was hoping for much more drive and power live on stage. Well… no, unfortunately not! Sound and singing was quite disappointing. Much more, Papa Emeritus had hearable problems at higher pitches and I was wondering if such show is really worth a Grammy. Of course, lights and stage performance were great, well synchronized and for sure an eye-catcher yet routinely. The nuns (locally casted)… too prissy. Only Papa Emeritus let himself get carried away with wicked gestures. The audience wasn’t quiet, far from it, but frenetic or overwhelming response goes differently. It took many requests by the band till the crowd got a bit livelier. But the mood increased step by step. And at the end GHOST finished their show with pleasure. I expected a bit more but it was a great evening though ;)
And meanwhile… GHOST also won the Swedish Grammis for the “Best Hard Rock/Metal” album.
Setlist: Miserere Mei, Deus (Gregorio Allegri), Masked Ball (Jocelyn Pook), Spirit, From The Pinnacle To The Pit, Stand By Him, Con Clavi Con Dio, Per Aspera Ad Inferi, Body And Blood, Devil Church, Cirice, Year Zero, Spöksonat, He Is, Absolution, Mummy Dust // If You Have Ghosts (Roky Erickson), Ghuleh/Zombie Queen, Ritual // Monstrance Clock, The Host Of Seraphim (Dead Can Dance)

story & pics © Dajana & Dajana Winkel • Photography