Ghost Frontman Explains How He Chose the Setlist for Metallica Tour

I’ve got to imagine Tobias Forge was beyond amped to get the chance to open for Metallica (again!) on the band’s currently underway European stadium tour. It doesn’t get any bigger than that! The ultimate opportunity.

Forge already has experience playing to huge crowds that aren’t his fans from doing it on Iron Maiden’s U.S. tour a couple summers ago and Metallica a few years before that, so he knows how to go about putting together a setlist for that kind of environment. Speaking to the Metal Global radio show, he said:

“I usually try to enforce songs that I think work very well live. I think our positioning now, as opposed to five years ago, when we played with Metallica last, which was nice, but I think the upside now is that more people — not everyone — know who we are. They might not be fans, but at least they’re, like, ‘This is a band that I know of.’

“On a big show like this, obviously, you have a lot of people coming out that maybe haven’t gone to a hard rock show in five years, and the last time they went to a hard rock show, it was AC/DC. That’s the thing when you’re playing with a big, global, iconic band — you get people from all… You might have people who maybe saw Metallica 20 years ago, and then they go to one show every fourth year. I wouldn’t wanna bother trying to play a song like ‘Ghuleh,’ for example. We don’t even play ‘He Is’ on a tour like this. We play the songs that work well, that don’t lose the attention, because you need to be a little bit more to the point when you’re playing in front of… When there’s so many people, if you lose them, it goes out so quickly, because everyone’s still there waiting for the bigger band. So, if you have their attention, it’s great, but as soon as you lose them, they’re, like, ‘Oh…’ And it just takes a few people to start booing, and then it starts.”

To wit, this is the setlist Ghost are trotting out each night on the Metallica tour:

1. Ashes
2. Rats
3. Absolution
4. Ritual
5. From the Pinnacle to the Pit
6. Faith
7. Cirice
8. Miasma
9. Year Zero
10. Mummy Dust
11. Dance Macabre
12. Square Hammer

It’s Ghost’s “hit and run” set, as someone I used to know would say. All the bangers.

Ghost will embark on an arena tour of the U.S. this coming fall. Dates here.

Check out the interview below along with some footage of Ghost’s performance on May 1st in Portugal.

[via Blabbermouth]