Gig Review: In Flames, Columbiahalle, Berlin

From Being a Berliner 1

It's a busy month for gigs in Berlin. On Saturday night, the Columbiahalle was packed for one of the cities most eagerly-awaited concerts, Swedish metal giants In Flames. The posters had been up all over the city for months, and the anticipation was obvious from the crowd reaction when opening act Sonic Syndicate name-dropped the headliners during their set. We arrived just after they had begun, and though I've never found much to make them appeal to me on CD, I have to say I was impressed with their stage performance. Not a single member seemed to ever stop moving as they careered through their set of radio-friendly metal, and the entire band - comprising two vocalists, two guitarists, bass and drums - was tight and note-perfect.

Next up were Gojira, a French metal band and easily the heaviest offering of the evening. Though not the kind of music one would expect to lend itself to live performance, their ominous, apocalyptic chords, driven by artillery-force percussion, left a lasting impression on the audience, as attested by the business of their merch stand after the show.

However, there could be no doubting who the majority of fans were there to see. Over the past few years, In Flames have risen to the top of the European metal scene, headlining festivals all over the continent. Currently touring their ninth studio album, they are arguably a band very much on top of their game. And so as the imposing shadows of the five-piece filled the white screen draped in the front of the stage, accompanied by the opening tones of The Chosen Pesimist, the band's titanic appearance could not have been more apt. And nor could the performance which followed.

From the moment the screen fell away at the peak of the opener, In Flames took the audience on a journey that more than fulfilled expectations. In front of a massive screen giving extra graphic representation to their songs, the band gave a consumate performance of melodic death metal which shows why they are still kings of the sub- genre they played such a great part in establishing. The lack of material from their earlier albums may have been a gripe for older fans, but the strength of the set without these songs served to emphasise how relevant the Swedes remain. Of course, crowd-pleasers such as Pinball Map and Only for the Weak received the usual rapturous reception, but the reaction to the final song, Take this Life from 2006's Come Clarity was more than equal in volume. An exemplary show from one of the leading lights of the modern metal scene.