PRIMAL FEAR: ONLY IN GERMANY (COULD SUCH A KIND OF METAL STILL BE POPULAR)

I’m not sure how Primal Fear have slipped under my radar all these years given my undying love of Iron Maiden and my recent exploration/fascination of/with Euro Power/Epic Metal cheese, but all it took was one note of last night’s headline set at NYC’s Gramercy Theater… and I was sold, hook line and sinker. Dork metal to the max; dorks of every kind, everywhere, more Iced Earth shirts than I’ve ever seen in one place ever other than an Iced Earth show, and somewhat shockingly a slew of hot older babes turned out to catch this German band’s U.S. tour kickoff (with Havok). So ridiculous, so epic, so Maiden-y, so Priest-y, so…. awesome. I loved it. Words cannot express.

There is absolutely nothing “cool” about Primal Fear, but fuck it, ’cause it ain’t about that. Everyone who was there was psyched to be there, kinda like how it was at the very first Paganfest U.S. Tour… old, young, skinny, fat, ugly, pretty, it didn’t matter ’cause all these people were united in their dorkdom and their love of this band. The venue was sufficiently full which caught my by surprise, because honestly I had no idea. It was a cool thing to see, especially from an outside perspective.

Final thought: I feel roughly the same way about Primal Fear’s bassist as I do about Swallow the Sun’s keyboard player. That dude rules and I want to be his best friend.

The above footage is from NextMosh.com; thanks dudes.

-VN