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It took another five years before King Diamond came back to Montreal, the same time that elapsed between the two last time he was here. As usual, tickets were sold out rapidly for this night at the MTelus that also included Overkill and Night Demon.

Night Demon is back on the road and back in Montreal after playing here last May. The venue is pretty packed when they hit the stage with “Outsider”. Being the first band of the night, they have literally no room on stage, but Armand John Anthony and Jarvis Leatherby start running on stage on the monitors so they can swap places during the amazing “Screams In The Night”. Their high energy is contagious and fans are getting more and more into their music with each song. One thing that I had complained about in the past was their light show, or lack of. This time they have better lighting and you can have a better appreciation of their hard work, especially what Brian Wilson is doing on drums. The succession of “Ritual,” “The Chalice” and “Night Demon” is fantastic, but you can see that most of the fans are simply waiting to see the headlining band. Night Demon is getting better with each tour and you can see that all their hard work is finally paying off. 

After a short set change, the might Overkill gets on stage and starts things off with ‘Scorched’ the title track of their last album. You can immediately see fans pushing each other as Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth’s vocals cuts through all the music. It has been ten years since the band played in Montreal but I don’t remember the last time Bobby’s voice was so powerful. He was simply on fire during their whole set. The second thing that needs to be mentioned is that D.D. Verni is sidelined for this show because of his recurring shoulder issues and is replaced by Christian Olde Wolbers (Vio-lence and ex-Fear Factory) on bass. Christian is so dynamic on stage that you can end up focussing on him for a whole song and ignore the rest of the band. They don’t have a lot of time on stage, so they cut to the chase and immediately follow with “Rotten To The Core”, a fan favourite that gets everyone screaming the chorus. Newcomer Jeramie Kling pounds those drums on “Bring Me The Night” like there is no tomorrow and makes it look so easy that you would think he's been in the band for many years. 

Even if you don’t know Overkill’s catalogue, you know “Hello From the Gutter” and fans pushed each other furiously during this song as die-hard fans were screaming their lungs out. The first crowd surfer finally appeared during “The Surgeon”, their second song from their most recent album. The band kept the pedal to the metal with “Ironbound” before giving another reason to the fans to go ballistic when they played “Elimination”. Overkill ended their total annihilation with “Fuck You”, their traditional set closer and you could see every fan showing proudly their middle finger in appreciation. Overkill is a well-oiled killing machine and I really hope we can see them headlining a show in Montreal supporting their most recent album in the near future.

It is now the moment that everyone was waiting for as King Diamond appeared behind Abigail’s casket on this multi-tier stage designed as a mental institute.  The crowd went wild as soon as the band kicked things in gear with the songs “Arrival” and “A Mansion In Darkness”. King Diamond is once again very charismatic and his vocals are spot on but for this tour his high-pitched vocals are supported by Myrkur instead of his wife. Andy LaRocque, Mike Wead and Pontus Egberg are also extremely dynamic during the whole concert.  Sadly, Myrkur is perched on the balcony but does not move from there and does not really interact with any of the musicians. Once again, the extremely talented Jodi Cachia is doing all the storytelling that is linked to the music and interacts with King Diamond as Grandma and multiple other characters in order to bring all the songs to life. This show also included “Spider Lilly”, “Masquerade Of Madness” and “Electro Therapy”, three new songs that were adequately placed in the set list. King Diamond also had different masks in addition to his usual face paint. 

You can see him as Grandpa as well as other characters from his upcoming album. “The Eye Of The Witch” was brought back to life after many years and you could see all the older fans singing their hearts out during this classic. The band came back for the encore with the song “Abigail” and the crowd went ballistic one last time.

King Diamond had roughly the same set up as last time and almost the same song selection, but the band was on fire and fans loved every second of their theatrical show. We can now hope that his new album will be out shortly and that he will come back with a new show.