Kaiya Vandemark
- May 7, 2023

Avatar Brings the Freak Show to San Diego

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your hero has returned again! Avatar returned to San Diego’s North Park Observatory on May 3rd as part of their “Dance Devil Dance” Tour with special guest Orbit Culture and Veil of Maya.

Orbit Culture, a melodic death metal/groove metal band from Eksjö, Sweden, kicked off the night! Their latest release, Shaman, sees them further expand on their dynamic sound. While rooted in the classic Swedish metal genre paved by bands such as At The Gates, In Flames, and Meshuggah, Orbit Culture has expanded upon that to create a more evolved, modernized sound of their own. Orbit Culture got pretty much the entire crowd to headbang in unison, which was really impressive for a San Diego crowd! They even got the security guards headbanging! Direct support of the night came from Chicago’s own Veil of Maya. Lead Singer, Lukas Magyar really showed off his versatility with a mix of clean and dirty vocals. Their set list was a blend of their older material, including Punisher & Leeloo, met with the newer era of the band. They have a new album coming out this week, Mother, on May 12th!

Avatar is the type of band that if you look away for a second, you’re definitely going to miss something.

With their theatrics, there are so many moving parts that make their performance so intriguing and unique. To start off their set, each band member came out of a rectangular-looking box resembling toy dolls or puppets. Before they could properly start the show though, Lead Singer Johannes Eckerström kindly asked us to give our consent to be violated through an ear assault and to remind us that “there is no safe word.” Johannes is seriously a performer unlike any other. He takes time inbetween songs to interact with the crowd and just have fun with them. At some point, he took off his jacket and of course the crowd gave some whistles. He teased by taking more off and then said, “Oh no, I saw the price of admission and this is all the skin you’re getting”

“Puppet Show” had everybody dancing and about midway through the song Johannes disappeared from the stage. He reappeared in the center of the crowd and made a balloon dog and then pulled out a trombone! It was one of those “what the fuck is happening” moments but I was all for it. Before the Black Waltz, they pulled off a little magic trick! A man in some sort of executioner’s mask came out carrying a gift box. He placed it on the platform by the drumkit, took the top off, and Johannes magically appeared with balloons in hand. The Black Waltz was personally my favorite performance of the night. Something about the sound and the act around the song was so powerful. Every time the song came back in, he would pop one of the balloons and then throw it into the crowd. Towards the end of the song, he inhaled one of them.

They slowed it down for a minute by bringing out a piano for Tower, further showing off Johannes’s multi-instrument talent. I’m always talking about how men just don’t sing like they used to in the ’80s, but Johannes definitely proved me wrong this night. His range is absolutely insane and pretty equivalent to legends like Rob Halford and Don Dokken. I say this on a daily basis, but more men need to sing like this again!

You’ve heard of guitar or drum battles at a metal show but have you ever seen a dance battle? Before they went into “A Statue of a King,” executioners mask guy came back out for a little dance-off with drummer, John Alfredsson. The two then pulled out some confetti guns, and when they shot them off, two banners fell portraying guitarist Jonas Jarlsby as a king. He then came back out on stage as a king! At the end of their set, Johannes expressed extreme gratitude to the audience and thanked them for “giving a fuck” about them. They then closed out their set with, “Hail The Apocalypse.” There are still a few more dates on the “Dance Devil Dance” Tour! If they’re playing in your city, make sure you don’t miss out on seeing this freak show live!