Volbeat were back in Cardiff for the first time in three years this November on their Greatest of all Worldwide tour. I saw them on their 33rd show as they were wrapping up the tour in the UK.
Supporting acts Witch Fever and Bush brought a lot of enthusiasm to the room and all the artists seemed to be having a great time, which I always feel makes or breaks a concert. Lead singer of Volbeat Michael had some great stage banter, and did a good job at bringing some energy to the crowd. He touched on some deeper topics of faith and spirituality, but was mostly just trying to keep us laughing. It was particularly heart-warming when the band took a pause to check in on a member of the audience who needed medical attention, and a nice reminder of the community you get at a lot of rock gigs, where people tend to look out for each other.
They put on a fantastic light and smoke show, which was beautifully synchronised to the music, and no one can say there was little effort put into the setup onstage. I counted four different backdrops over the course of Volbeat’s set alone. They played 4 songs from their new album, and Time Will Heal was absolutely epic live. Volbeat made sure to hit some of the old favourites too, and everyone in the room was dancing when they played Die to Live.
The crowd was mostly older folks so the atmosphere was pretty relaxed and casual. This made sense between the midweek gig and the fact that Volbeat have been releasing albums since 2005; being around that long will get you some older fans! That’s definitely not to say they haven’t been moving with the times though – plenty of the songs from their most recent album, Gods of Angels Trust (Or GOAT, I’ll get to that soon) focus in pretty hard on ideas of mental health and healing which are things many younger listeners will definitely identify with. I like seeing this in modern rock, because it does a lot to humanise the artists we look up to.
That all being said, there was still evidence of a new generation of Volbeat fans in the crowd, with a handful of kids attending what was probably for some their first gig. Volbeat noticed too and invited them all onstage for a song, which was absolutely adorable, and definitely not something I’ve ever seen happen before. I’d say about 15 kids were handed over the barriers in front of the stage to the venue staff and led up to meet the band.
As a more causal Voltbeat listener I did find myself wondering halfway through the set, around when Michael was encouraging the crowd to make Baaing noises, what was up with all the goats?
They feature pretty heavily in the album art for Gods of Angels Trust (see, GOAT.) and in some of the songs. He shared on the night a few times how he just kind of likes them, and has reflected in an interview with Revolver magazine that they used the goat as a scapegoat, a sort of likeness for all the evils out there in the world. I thought they made for some pretty cool art behind the stage.
It’s a bold statement to call your tour The Greatest Of All – Did Volbeat seal the deal? Almost.
Words by Jasmine Cooper
Image courtesy of Hugo L. Casanova via Unsplash. No changes have been made to the original image.
