WWW.METALSETLISTS.COM - At the Gates -- Toronto, Ontario -- July 13th, 2008

At the Gates
Support: Darkest Hour, Municipal Waste, Toxic Holocaust
Date: July 13th, 2008
Venue: the Opera House in Toronto, Ontario
Source: all setlist.fm because I remember very little

I was not expecting it but I had so much fun at this show. I’m not into the whole thrash revival scene and I don’t listen to any thrash (except Slayer, if they are thrash) so to me Toxic Holocaust sounded a lot like Beneath the Remains-era Sepultura. Which was fine with me because I like Beneath the Remains-era Sepultura. They was really good but I thought their singer looked gay.

[U]Toxic Holocaust[/U]
1. Death Master  
2. Gravelord  
3. War Is Hell  
4. Wild Dogs  
5. 666  
6. Nuke the Cross  

I’d never heard of Municipal Waste but I just had so much fun watching them that I fell in love. This wasn’t as chaotic as some other MW shows (no crowd surfing on surfboards or guys dressed in wizard outfits). But they made up for it with great songs and lots of humor. I love short, fast songs so I was loving stuff like [I]Thrashing’s My Business…and Business is Good[/I]. And song titles like [I]Beer Pressure[/I] and the [I]Thrashin’ of the Christ[/I], I was loving it. Then when they played [I]Black Ice[/I] in all of its glorious 23 seconds I was sold. Municipal Waste rule.

[U]Municipal Waste[/U]
1. Headbanger Face Rip  
2. Terror Shark  
3. Mental Shock  
4. Beer Pressure  
5. The Thrashin' of the Christ  
6. Thrashing's My Business... And Business Is Good  
7. Sadistic Magician  
8. Unleash the Bastards  
9. Black Ice  
10. Nailed Casket  
11. Mind Eraser  
12. Bangover  
13. Born to Party

Darkest Hour I was well aware of but I’d never heard anything by them except the [I]Sadist Nation[/I] years earlier. But [I]Doomsayer[/I] had me sold. That’s still one of my favorite songs ever and one of the best songs you could possibly open a concert with. I remember I enjoyed everything else they played but it’s all a blur. By time they were halfway done I knew this was one of the better shows I’d been to.

[U]Darkest Hour[/U]
1. Doomsayer (The Beginning of the End)  
2. Sound the Surrender  
3. Stand and Receive Your Judgment  
4. An Epitaph  
5. With a Thousand Words to Say But One  
6. These Fevered Times  
7. Deliver Us  
8. The Sadist Nation

At the Gates: what more do I need to say? I was a late comer to them and never heard Slaughter of the Soul until 2001. But like so many others I consider it to be one of the best albums I’ve ever heard and still consider the guitar work and sound to be some of the best I’ve ever heard. I thought opening with the title track was very odd. Really, [I]Blinded by Fear[/I] should have opened the whole set and [I]Slaughter of the Soul[/I] should have closed the concert out. I think that would’ve been better. The crowd was ravenous for anything off Slaughter of the Soul and completely died during everything else. And the band recognized that by playing the entire album, albeit out of sequence. [I]Kingdom Gone[/I] is their staple closer so they tried to get the crowd pumped for that song but no one really cared. At the Gates I guess is really a one album band. Everything else I’ve heard by them is good enough but not exceptional. But Slaughter of the Soul is something special.

[U]At the Gates[/U]
1. Slaughter of the Soul  
2. Cold  
3. Terminal Spirit Disease  
4. Raped by the Light of Christ  
5. Under a Serpent Sun  
6. Windows  
7. World of Lies  
8. The Burning Darkness  
9. The Swarm  
10. Forever Blind  
11. Nausea  
12. The Beautiful Wound  
13. Suicide Nation  
14. All Life Ends  
15. Need  
Encore:
16. Blinded by Fear  
17. Unto Others  
18. Kingdom Gone
as the band exited the stage [I]the Flames Of The End[/I] played over the P.A.

Great show