Gloryhammer @ The Mill Digbeth

22.10.2019, Birmingham, UK

When I turned round the corner onto Lower Trinity Street where tonight’s venue The Mill is located I couldn’t believe my eyes – the queue was the same length as the whole street. I have not seen a sight like this for a while and was looking forward to a very obviously sold out show!

The first band on stage was Wind Rose. The Italian five-piece very recently (27 September 2019) released their latest album Wintersaga, and dressed in leather armour they were leading tonight’s journey on the quest for power metal.

Next on stage were Beast In Black. Only few months ago the band was visiting Birmingham supporting Nightwish at the arena and now they were returning here to play with Gloryhammer on the smaller stage of The Mill. Tonight’s setlist consisted from two studio albums – the band’s first 2017 release Berserk and also their latest record, From Hell With Love, which came out in February this year.

When a life size cardboard cut-out of Tom Jones appeared on stage and suddenly the whole room found themselves singing along to “Delilah” it was time for some intergalactic travels with Gloryhammer. Then Angus McFife XIII, the Crown Prince of Fife, greeted us and the set started straight with “Into the Terrorwortex” and “The Siege of Dunkeld,” which are the first tracks of Gloryhammer’s new release Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorwortex which came out on 31 May 2019.

Founded by keyboardist and Alestorm frontman Christopher Bowes, who is also the main songwriter for Gloryhammer (I have realized that there are still lots of people who are not aware of these facts), these guys are here to have fun. And having fun is exactly what they do. All members of the band fully in their characters wearing costumes, swinging a hammer while a goblin is running around the stage. I mean, there are not that many bands who can successfully sell cheesy spectacles like this, and if normally “cheesy” means me rolling my eyes then this is said in the most positive way since we were all enjoying the show and yelling for more.