REVIEW: Emperor, Devil Master at Kings Theatre | 06.25.2023

Show Reviews

Jul 1

Written By

For the first time in 15 years, Norwegian black metal legends Emperor returned to the United States for a five-city tour. The second stop of the run was last Sunday at the beautiful Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, and Devil Master was on hand as support.

The Show

Devil Master got the night off to a dark and thrashing start, treating fans to their unique twist of punk and black metal. The band tore through their set without a moment's rest, determined to bring the energy in the room up to a peak and to keep it there for the entirety of the set; they were indeed successful.

I wasn't able to find the setlist to speak to that but will use this as an opportunity to plug their newest album, "Ecstasies Of Never Ending Night," released in April of last year. Give it a listen!

The curtains opened a few minutes prior to Emperor taking the stage, revealing a wall of Marshall amps; a fitting foreshadowing to the explosion of sound we were about to experience. Emperor began their set with “In The Wordless Chamber,” making it clear from the very first note why they have been and continue to be one of the most influential bands in black metal.

The band’s setlist leaned heavily on the iconic “Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk” and “In the Nightside Eclipse” albums, with individual selections from the equally magnificent “IX Equilibrium” and “Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise.” It was an epic performance that was worth the wait, and I hope that it brings about many more tours of the United States (and beyond) in the years to come.

The Shoot

As soon as Devil Master began their first song, the lighting looked fine and I felt confident as I snapped away and (seemingly) got shot after shot of usable photos. It wasn’t until the third song that I happened to glance at my settings and realized my shutter was at 1/30. I had forgotten to change my settings from when I was using the flash at Spotlights last night, and that shutter speed is much much too slow for this performance. Well shit. Rookie mistake, and a costly one at that. Now I really had to make the last song count. I got what I could but I was feeling the stress, and it manifested itself in the form of me speed scrolling through the photos on my camera once the third song was over to see what I’d gotten.

To my dismay, it a steady stream of blurry photos. I was able to get a batch of shots once I'd adjusted my settings, many of them usable, but I was having a hard time getting past the out-of-focus shots. They showcased a plethora of missed opportunities that would have been great to have had I simply double checked my settings before the show began.

Needless to say I double and triple checked my settings before Emperor took the stage, determined to not make anymore careless mistakes. Emperor’s lighting was great from the start and made for a relatively smooth shoot. I ran into some composition challenges given the size of the stage. It was harder to get shots of multiple members without highlighting the distance between the members. I decided to focus more on individual band members and wait until they were on the move to grab group shots, though I wasn’t able to get a solid full band shot despite my best efforts.

The length of Emperor’s songs worked in my favor as it allowed for me to take my time and not feel overly rushed. The band’s performance was limited to the three songs in the pit, so once I the third song was over I put the camera away and made my way to my seat to enjoy the show.

July is going to be a quiet month for me show-wise as I have a lot of vacation travel planned. It’ll give me some time to get caught up before the action packed months of August and September, with lots of epic shows coming through New York. I’ll catch you in a few weeks - in the meantime, enjoy your summer!