Courtney Balcombe

Creative Editor

clb6264@psu.edu

Heavy metal originally was not on my list of top music choices, but for Valentine’s Day, I had found this concert for my boyfriend since he loves the band Ghost, and most of their tours are over in Europe, so to find them playing in Pittsburgh was amazing.

Before the concert even began there were many issues with the venue. To begin, parking was cash only but you did not know where the parking lots were until passing them. After parking and making the uphill trek, the signs for lines were almost invisible. We stood in line for general admission, ground floor, thinking we were roughly in the correct line, but we were not. Our entrance was with the VIP entrance, but since there were no clear signs at the venue, we did not know until we had already been standing outside for almost 40 minutes.

After standing in line for t-shirts and then food, we found out the section 208 that we were supposed to be in was closed off at the last minute. So the usher gave us two new random seats. These new seats were in section 123, so they were already better than our original seats. However, halfway through the concert two people came to sit in their seats that they bought through Ticketmaster, just to find out one of their seats was given to us on a new paper ticket. Luckily no one was next to the group on our right and they were willing to move over.

Neither of us had heard of Twin Temple, but once we listened to them on Spotify it gave us the impression of Satanic Doo-Wop. The duo, which consists of Alexandra and Zachary James, describe their band through their website.

“It’s really just a reflection of everything we love,” Alexandra said. “We’ve always loved rock ‘n’ roll, … but we’re also Satanists and study the Occult. … It was just a crazy idea– ‘Why can’t you love Roy Orbison and hail Satan at the same time?’ Satanism has been relegated to the metal scene for so long, but we are Satanists and listen to The Platters and Buddy Holly, you know? We love metal too, but this is a reflection of who we are as people. This record was something we wanted to create for ourselves… we were happy to see that it resonated with other people out there, too.”

Before Twin Temple even began playing music, they started the concert off with a prayer to Satan, even ending it with “Hail Satan.” Alexandra was so full of energy throughout her performance while James jammed out on the guitar.

While on stage, they had a short set list, playing “Sex Magick,” “Satan’s a Woman,” “I’m Wicked,” and “Let’s have a Satanic Orgy.”

I think my favorite song had to be “Satan’s a Woman” due to how it was written. Alexandra’s lyrics saying, “Why do they say the devil is a gentleman? I’m not gentle. And I’m not a man.” Following this song she took a moment to ask the crowd if they wanted to have a Satanic orgy to promote their newest song they released at the end of January this year.

After the ending of Twin Temple’s short setlist, there was a 20 minute break to prepare the stage for Volbeat, the next performance. They are a Danish rock band that we had never heard of, but they seemed out of place between Twin Temple and Ghost, especially when he sang part of a Johnny Cash song.

Some of Volbeat’s setlist included “Still Counting,” “Devil’s Bleeding Crown,” “Last Day under the Sun,” and “Lola Montez.” The band did perform for a good portion of the concert and many of their songs seemed to blend together, so it was hard to recognize the ending of one song and the beginning of a new song.

As much as I regret to admit this, Volbeat was kind of boring and I did fall asleep for maybe five minutes of their performance, since the songs all had the same beat to them it caused me to kind of lose interest in them halfway through their set.

Once Volbeat finally ended their performance, it took maybe 30 to 40 minutes to set the stage up for Ghost. The stage setup for Ghost was amazing and the prop design made it look like a cemetery. Some of the band members were even standing on top of coffins.

While Ghost is just one person, Tobias Forge, but his stage name is Papa Emeritus. The band that performs with him on tour is always a well known band that people refer to as “Ghouls.” No one ever knows who the band is because they wear masks and just play their instruments while Papa Emeritus frolics around the stage.

Ghost’s set lineup included “Absolution,” “Rats,” “From the Pinnacle to the Pit,” “Mary on the Cross,” “Ritual,” “Dance Macabre,” “Square Hammer,” “Year Zero,” “Circe,” “Enter Sandman,” “Mummy Dust” and “Faith.”

As Papa Emeritus told St. Louis Dispatch, each band was to have 75 minutes to perform. However, that was not the case in Pittsburgh due to their 11 p.m. curfew. While Twin Temple came on at 7 p.m. their set was done by 7:30 p.m. Volbeat’s stage set up began shortly after, and Ghost started their set around 9:45 p.m. Ghost, interestingly enough, decided to play around before their last song, telling the audience to, “Go home … go f- yourself.”

While this is the second concert we have attended with the 11 p.m. curfew in Pittsburgh, it was still a great experience just enjoying what was being played and even getting better seats than what we paid for. However, our next concert experience will not be in Pittsburgh due to their curfew that forces time crunches between bands.