Gig

Hammerfall – Review & Gallery 14th January @ Metropolis, Perth WA

Gareth Williams

Senior Writer/Ranga

Jan 16, 2025

7 min read

HammerFall
Metropolis, Fremantle WA
January 14, 2025
Support: Silent Knight

If Europe is the world’s epicentre for power metal, surely Perth is Australia’s. A sleepy Tuesday night was transformed into a feast of soaring vocals and screaming guitars. Headlining with the first show of a long-awaited Australia tour are Swedish power metal legends HammerFall. But before we feel the wrath of the mighty Swedes there’s an Aussie quintet who have something to say.

The first thing to say is Silent Knight must be doing something right to get picked up as support for not just their hometown of Perth, but the entire tour. They are surely Australia’s premier power metal band. Bravo lads, now don’t screw it up…

Spoiler alert: They didn’t. The boys delivered a solid set, in-fact at it’s conclusion a punter turned to me and said, “solid f’n set” . When you’re the opening act you can’t cover every base, hell even when you’re a headline act it’s almost impossible. Kicking off with ‘Into Oblivion’ the lads were obviously going off at full force. The set was weighted towards their latest album Full Force with only the title track of their debut Masterplan getting a spot. It has to be said lead singer Dan Brittan’s impressive vocals got a workout, and the whole band were tight showcasing their musicianship without losing their now trademark sense of humour. It may have started out a sleepy Tuesday in the west, but Silent Knight well and truly woke us up!

But the night belonged to HammerFall and it wasn’t long before the Swedes to hit the stage. As it was my first time seeing the band live I wasn’t sure what to expect. Big sound, big vocals, huge guitars. Well, it had all those things and more. But what I really got was the band just wanted to bring everyone together. Many songs of the power metal genre lend themselves to a jolly good sing-a-long and lashings of audience participation, HammerFall’s songs are no different. The outfit hit the ground running and never let up. With nearly four decades of solid material to choose from, the setlist had to be either easy to put together or incredibly hard, I lean towards the latter.

The band used to playing European festivals and venues with capacity in the tens of thousands took the 1200 cap venue in their stride. At times they looked physically too big for the smaller stage and threatened to burst off it, such was the power and might. Banger after banger was delivered like they were headlining the main stage at Wacken. The set was obviously well rehearsed, but delivered in such a way it felt spontaneous and fresh. One punter commented it felt like HammerFall had been building to this moment their whole career… I got what he meant but I’m not sure playing Perth on a Tuesday was ever on the Swede’s bucket list. But it didn’t matter because that’s how they made him feel.

This band are consummate professionals, brilliant musicians and had the crowd eating up every note, operatic vocal and thundering drum fill. By the time the encores came around – always the saddest part of any great gig – I don’t think there was a power metal fan in the room who didn’t want it to go on all night. But as much as many would love to keep them in the west, sharing is caring, and we had to let HammerFall go on their way to march across and conquer the rest of Australia.

Review by Gareth Williams

Photo Gallery by Emanuel Rudnicki. Insta: @emanuelrucnicki
Please credit Emanuel Rudnicki if you use published photos

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