Belphegor in Berlin: Austrian death metal veterans celebrate 'Praise the Beast'
With golden chalices, crosses and skulls on stage, Austrian band Belphegor continued their 'Praise the Beast' European tour at Berlin's Musikbrauerei.
Archive image · Photo: Dark Prime / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0 (cropped and resized)
Austrian death metal band Belphegor played the Musikbrauerei in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district on 9 October as part of their 'Praise the Beast' European tour. According to a report by Paranoyd Magazin on 10 October, the band led by frontman Helmuth Lehner decorated the stage with golden chalices, large satanic crosses and skulls. A roughly ten-minute intro was followed by a set of about 75 minutes drawing on more than three decades of the band's history, ending shortly before midnight. The reviewer described the evening as a dark metal ritual.
Three bands played before Belphegor in the more than 120-year-old Musikbrauerei: Mexican blackened deathcore band A Call for Revenge with a set of around half an hour, black metal outfit Asagraum with an all-female line-up fronted by singer Hanna van den Berg, and Brazilian death metal band Krisiun. The audience reacted enthusiastically, according to the report; the magazine gave no attendance figures.