'Celebrating Life Through Death' Tour Review
2024 is a strong year for metal enthusiasts - first of all, we had the 40th anniversary of Dream Theater, and on the 12th November 2024 we celebrated Sepultura’s 40th year on metal stages as a part of their “Celebrate Life Through Death” tour.
This late afternoon at Eventim Apollo was opened by metalcore Pennsylvanians from Jesus Piece as well as well-experienced and well-known death metal Floridians from Obituary who warmed up the gathering crowds amazingly before the two main stars of the night.
The main support before Sepultura was the powerful Ukrainian quartet Jinjer. To say that my jaw dropped to the floor with the very first tunes is an understatement. Tatiana Shmayluk - the Lead singer of the band - is a force every metal vocalist should be reckoned with. The strength of her voice circling around the venue was unbelievable. The depth of her unclean vocals is immaculate and beats many seasoned metal vocalists.
Another great aspect of their show was an incredible instrumental tightness between Vladislav, Eugene and Roman. You can tell how well synced the instrumentalists are and it comes very natural to them. Another aspect of the show that made me enjoy it more was the extraordinary light show that led their performance to new heights. I was also very impressed with crowd interactions that they had with fans and how much people loved their very intensely charged show, especially crowd surfing a lot.
One more thing I need to emphasise when it comes to crowd support is the fact that the band was grateful for the outpouring of support for Ukraine as the members of Jinjer are originally from Donetsk that was forcefully grabbed by the Russian regime. They proved that they are great ambassadors of their country torn by war.
Jinjer is an absolutely outstanding live band every metal fan should watch at least once. I see them being a massive musical force for years to come. I’m looking forward to experiencing more and more of their greatness, especially as this band was recently announced to appear at Download Festival 2025.
When the time arrived for the main act of the night, Sepultura’s set started very high with 'Refuse/Resist' from their 1993 album 'Chaos A.D.'. From the very first minute they reminded everyone why they have been on stage for so many years with their incredible power and stage personas. What deserves an especially big highlight and praise is the new addition to the band - the drummer Greyson Nekrutman. The 22-year-old drummer, who is known for being a jazz drummer as well as former beat master of Suicidal Tendencies adds a lot of freshness to a seasoned and well-managed machine.
Something I would love to also praise was the incredible co-drumming during 'Kaiowas' performed by Sepultura’s vocalist – Derryck Green, Jinjer’s Drummer - Vladislav on floor toms and Greyson on his drumkit in sync. In the middle of the song other crew members as well as Obituary and Jesus Piece's musicians joined to crown the whole song. Alongside the crowd’s clapping and chants during the whole performed piece was simply outstanding and phenomenal. 'Kaiowas' was definitely the brightest part of their whole set.
When the end of the show was approaching, another absolutely fire moment was during encore. Greyson has been given an opportunity to perform a stellar drum solo piece that included playing both with his signature hand movement and sticks... And later merged into 'Ratamahatta'. And if it wasn’t big enough - they wrapped the whole set with their most iconic song - 'Roots Bloody Roots' accompanied by more crowd chants.
Despite the simple stage production - Sepultura left Eventim Apollo in pieces. Sometimes you don’t need literal fireworks to be incredible on stage. Seeing that the band has more music releases scheduled for 2025 – hopefully we will have a chance to experience another great show.