Opeth and In Flames quickly became the much talked about touring package to hit the North American continent and the crowd at the Hollywood Palladium immediately showed how much the two bands’ popularity have grown over the years.
Show opener Red Fang brought their riff rock sound in front of a largely younger and unfamiliar crowd a taste of Northwestern rock and how it is done. While their brief set consisted of a mere 30 minutes, it gave them enough time to throw down several slabs of tasty riffings and jabs tothe guts of innocent bystanders who wanted a sampling.

Opening with ‘Malverde’ and then layering it with ‘Crowns In Swine’ and ‘Blood Like Cream,’ band co-vocalists Bryan Giles (guitar) and Aaron Beam (bass) both took turns fronting their respective tunes and kept the early attendees in check with a heavy dosage of rock.

“Malverde” (Murder The Mountains)
“Crowns in Swine” (Whales and Leeches)
“Blood Like Cream” (Whales and Leeches)
“1516” (Whales and Leeches)
“Wires” (Murder The Mountains)
“No Hope” (Whales and Leeches)
“Prehistoric Dog” (Red Fang)

Longtime In Flames fans may not be happy with their recent musical style shifting away from the heavy guitar harmony based sound to a more synth-backed modern melodic metal sound they have been experimenting with over the past few albums. But tonight’s set list focused entirely on the newer songs (with the exception of “Only For The Weak” from 2000’s Clayman).
Opening with ‘In Plain View’ and ‘Everything’s Gone’ (from their latest album Siren Charms), the band got the crowd into a frenzy with their elaborate light show and front man Anders Friden working the crowd to sing along.

Much of their set list consisted of tunes from each of the past six albums, which the crowd definitely were familiar with. Their newer sound gives them a more modernized sound, leaning more towards a commercialized melodic metal sound that catered more towards the younger audience who were in the crowd.
One thing that In Flames still managed to draw out of the crowd were occasional crowd surfers and an attempted circle pit during their heavier songs, such as ‘Deliver Us’ and ‘Take This Life’, but also during crowd favorites such as ‘Trigger’ and ‘Cloud Connected.’

In Plain View (Siren Charms)
Everything’s Gone (Siren Charms)
Trigger (Reroute To Remain)
Cloud Connected (Reroute To Remain)
Delight and Angers (A Sense of Purpose)
Paralyzed (Siren Charms)
Through Oblivion (Siren Charms)
Only for the Weak (Clayman)
The Chosen Pessimist (A Sense Of Purpose)
Where the Dead Ships Dwell (Soundtrack To A Playground Fading)
Rusted Nail (Siren Charms)
The Quiet Place (Soundtrack To Your Escape)
The Mirror’s Truth (A Sense Of Purpose)
Deliver Us (Soundtrack To A Playground Fading)
Take This Life (Come Clarity)

It became obvious that much of the audience was eagerly awaiting Opeth’s return and their popularity has grown over the years. They landed the headlining slot for tonight’s show and they definitely did not disappoint. While the band played a whopping seven songs within a 70 minute set, there were rarely a dull moment throughout that time.
Front man Mikael Akerfeldt is a man of few words and he lets the music do the talking. Opening with ‘Eternal Rains Will Come’ and ‘Cusp Of Eternity,’ Opeth won the crowd over immediately and gave them a good cross section of the band’s history, covering songs from various eras of their history.
They managed to work in older tunes such as ‘The Moor’ (from 1999’s Still Life) and ‘Windowpane’ (from 2003’s Damnation), which covered some of their heavier songs from the mid-era of the band. Their flawless playing styles did not disappoint, spanning the different styles of the songs they worked into the set list.
They closed with the 13 and a half minute ‘Deliverance’, which is a much talked about tune amongst fans, but they managed to nail it in a way that won the crowd over immediately. Opeth has shown why they are one of the few bands today who can march to the beat of their own music, and continue to win over fans on each record, despite how stylistically different each release may or may not be.

Eternal Rains Will Come (Pale Communion)
Cusp of Eternity (Pale Communion)
The Drapery Falls (Blackwater Park)
The Moor (Still Life)
Windowpane (Damnation)
The Lotus Eater (Watershed)
Deliverance (Deliverance)

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REI NISHIMOTO