AMON AMARTH CONQUERED THE RIVERSIDE MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM WITH SPECIAL HEADLINING SHOW

Get Some Magazine archival photo: Amon Amarth @ The Hollywood Palladium. 2019. Shot by James Alvarez

The Swedish metal Vikings in Amon Amarth just wrapped up a successful North American tour supporting their rockin’ countrymen, Ghost. Before the band began their voyage home, Amon Amarth played a special headlining show at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, CA. They brought the Sonoran Desert dwellers in Gatecreeper to open this special one off show and the packed house of SoCal metal fiends couldn’t have been happier with their choice of support acts.

Gatecreeper’s bludgeoning sound was the perfect fit for Amon Amarth’s foot stomping, head banging in horned helmets type of fanbase. The venue was already mostly full when Gatecreeper began their set, and as they wound things down the now packed auditorium turned into a heavy metal sauna. Of course, a little heat wouldn’t stop the scores of Amon Amarth disciples from losing their minds once the band hit the stage. They opened with “Guardians of Asgaard” off 2008’s epic, Twilight of the Thunder God, and a full night of head banging and fans singing/growling along at the top of their lungs officially began.

Watching Amon Amarth fit their massive stage show, complete with a Viking ship mast, huge statues and a giant serpent, inside the walls of the Riverside Municipal Auditorium was a sight to witness. The band regularly plays large theaters, huge open air music festivals and just completed an arena tour, but their killers and enthralling stage spectacle make each venue feel like a packed club show. Whoever configured their setlist deserves a raise. There was a great mix of newer and older tunes, sequenced in such a way that produced maximum crowd enjoyment and most of all, participation. “Raven’s Flight” and “The Great Heathen Army” prompted maximum headbanging, while the guitar melodies in “Heidrun” had people dancing in the aisles. All that followed by the old school wallop of “Death in Fire” and “The Pursuit of Vikings” which equates to the best type of melodic death metal overdose imaginable…and that was less than the first half of the set!

By the time Amon Amarth concluded the night with another spellbinding rendition of “Twilight of the Thunder God” where frontman Johan Hegg uses Thor’s hammer to vanquish the giant Midgard Serpent they somehow fit on stage, it felt like we had just witnessed multiple concerts, not just one. Cheers to Amon Amarth for granting their Southern California fans another epic night of metal memories, before they return for their next conquest.