PHOTOS: AMON AMARTH AND TYR AT THE TLA, PHILADELPHIA, PA, APRIL 29TH, 2010

Last Thursday here in Philadelphia I had the oppurtunity to shoot Tyr and Amon Amarth for the final date of their US Tour [See that above picture? That alone makes me so sad I missed this tour in NY -Ed.]. Between rushing from school, fighting traffic and my complete inability to find a parking spot I missed opening band Holy Grail, but I arrived just in time for Tyr. Armed with some of the most awesome boots I’ve ever seen, Tyr awoke the Viking in all of us. Though I found some of the choruses pretty brutally obvious and uninspiring (the lyrics of “The Sword in My Hand” for example) they were definitely fun to watch.

Being a virgin Amon Amarth show-goer, I was a little overly excited for this show. As long as I walked away with one image of some synchronized head banging I would be satisfied. They tore through an awesome set, Johan Hegg pausing between songs to speak to all of us, or sometimes to only some of us: “I want to hear all the ladies out there. [pause for screaming women, this photographer included]. This one is for all the ladies!” As they came out for the encore, they had asked their roadie to play bass for them, and being the last date of the tour, all the members from Tyr and Holy Grail joined on stage as well. All in all an awesome night.

Oh, Did I mention all the awesome beards? Yeah, good stuff.

Photos after the jump.