“TORONTO!! KREATOR HAS RETUUURRRNNED!!!”
Three songs in, that was how Kreator frontman Mille Petrozza introduced himself and his bandmates to the crowd before moving on to discuss how his band, nay, how his entire country envisions our fair city.
“There’s one thing Toronto is famous for. One thing people in Germany are talking about – it is the mosh pits. Is it true that Toronto has the biggest mosh pits?” Sure, it was probably one of those things that he says to incite a pit in every city no matter what, but lines like that do tend to work. And if he was giving us a standard line, he would later reassure the crowd that he wasn’t just kissing ass when he said that this was one of the craziest crowds on the tour so far. I believe it.
The band played to a packed house of fans excited to see not just them, but headliners Sabaton. And many of those fans did get a decent pit going at Petrozza’s behest. Petrozza did, however, muddy the waters a bit later on about what exactly it is that Toronto is known for when he also noted, “This city is known for one thing and that’s that the fans are fucking crazy!” Make up your mind, Mille. Which one is it? I will concede that if you drew up a Venn Diagram of ‘biggest mosh pits’ and ‘fucking crazy fans’ there would be a lot of overlap, but that’s still two things, man. Two things! But I’m nitpicking. And digressing a bit. So let’s move on.
Despite any confusion they may have created over exactly what it is that Toronto is best known for (my guess would have been Drake … or maybe Rob Ford), the band put on a solid show that started off at full throttle and basically stayed at that level for the entire set.
Live, Kreator are a model of German efficiency. They thrashed hard, ripped out some killer solos, stoked the crowd, and fit as much of it all as possible into their 75 minute set. And as they ended things off with “Pleasure To Kill,” they kindly reminded us all about the mosh pit: “Toronto! Mosh pits! This is your last chance to kill each other!” Thanks, Kreator.