Obituary + Exodus + Prong + King Parrot - live report

On the 17th of November, Zagreb got a privilege to be a part of ''Battle of Bays'' tour which included King Parrot, Prong, Exodus and Obituary.

The show started quite early for my taste, in 7:30 pm King Parrot hit the stage, a young Australian thrash metal/grindcore band, the sound could have been better on their show, they only played for half an hour, they weren't my taste, but they weren't bad.  As expected, the crowd was relatively small, a lot of people were drinking outside the venue waiting for the headliners.

The follow up band was Prong, an american heavy metal band from mid 80's, they don't have a lot of popularity here, but the crowd was larger and more active on Prong, its during the end of their show that more fans started entering the venue because of Exodus. They weren't quite my taste either, but they played a good show nonetheless.

After a short break thrash metal legends Exodus hit the stage, this is when the amount of people and the energy was at its peak that night. Their last show in Croatia was in 2012. in Osijek which I attended, back when Rob Dukes was the frontman. They played new stuff as well as alot of old stuff, I really liked their energetic performance and the mosh pit was going on all the time. Zetro complimented the crowd as being the loudest they've heard so far on their tour, now I doubt thats true,he probably tells that on every show, but hey, its showmanship after all. I saw a picture on facebook a day after that  a member of King Parrot got some bad bruising after trying to crowd surf on Exodus.

They delivered a great show, nothing less than we expected, its my 3rd time watching them live, and I didn't get bored, plus we got a wall of death on the last song „Strike of the beast“ finishing off the show in a blast.

Finally, death metal pioneers hit the stage after a short soundcheck, from my observation the crowd was a bit smaller, and not as active as on Exodus, but there was a mosh pit going on here and there, but I gotta say Obituary got us headbanging all the time along with their iconic heavy bonecrushing riffs, the sound was great and the choice of songs was excellent, they played classics as well as new material from „Inked in Blood“ and „Ten thousand ways to die“. Even though my favorite band of the evening was Obituary, I gotta say that the best showmanship, charisma and interaction with the crowd was shown by Exodus. I wanted to see Obituary for a long time, and my wish was finally fulfilled, I was expecting alot, and I got even more than I expected, they played flawlessly and alot of my favorite songs were on the setlist. Before the very end of the show they left the stage but quickly came back and played the classic „Slowly we rot“ making the crowd go crazy one last time.

 

Overall, a great concert night that unfortunately ended too soon, the crowd could have been bigger because the bands deserved it, but its the way it is. I was dissapointed that there was no merchandise to buy after the show, I'm pretty sure some people wanted to get a tour shirt for a memory.
Until my next review, cheers from Namazet !