It has finally come to this. After a forty-plus year career, Sepultura have decided to call it a day. It is a bitter-sweet ending, not least because the recent run of albums has been among the band’s very best, showcasing an increasingly progressive flourish that never quite received the appreciation it deserved. Nevertheless, the band are going out at the very top of their game and so, it is with no small amount of anticipation and sadness that we find ourselves packed into the confines of a sold-out Hammersmith Apollo.
Thanks to traffic, we arrive shortly before the headliners are due to take the stage for a monster set that runs just shy of two-hours in length. This means we miss the support acts who, by all accounts, played blinding sets – a shame, but the M1 remains a most unreliable channel to the capital, even at the best of times. We enter to find the venue already packed, with the crowd churning right up to the very doors of the auditorium and the temperature soaring. Of course, a band with a catalogue of fifteen albums could play for twice the time and still not please everyone, but tonight’s set is an impressive mix of old favourites and current belters. Not for Sepultura the pointless rehashing of a storied past – they’re rightly proud of their current albums, and they get a fair showing across a setlist that zips between albums, reminding us that the quality rarely (if ever) dipped.
Announcing the band’s imminent arrival, the house lights are swapped for blazing stage lights as the sound of War Pigs rings out. It has a fired-up audience singing along at the top of their lungs (something that continues sporadically throughout the night), and it sets the mood nicely. It’s followed by Titas’ Policia, and then the intro tape rolls, causing the impatient crowd to surge forward. Of course, the band know how to make an entrance and they hit the stage hard, tearing through Refuse/Resist and Territory before we manage to draw breath. The sound isn’t perfect, sounding somewhat muddy throughout the first song, but it soon clears up and, although it’s often a little rough and ready across the night (especially when playback is involved), the swirling pit is far too caught up in the momentum to care overmuch. Certainly the response to the band is immediate and damned near deafening, the roar that greets each new track competing with the PA, especially when Derrick introduces a brutal Slave New World.
As introductions go, it’s pretty much flawless. Sepultura are masters of their craft, and their opening gambit sets the Apollo alight. However, they clearly have no wish to do their most recent efforts a disservice and, as the backdrop falls to reveal a giant digital screen, the band unleash a monstrous Phantom Self from Machine Messiah – a latter-day masterpiece that remains one of the finest albums that band ever produced. It’s followed by an explosive Attitude, an early-set nod to Roots that has the crowd screaming the title, although Means To An End (from Quadra) soon eclipses it in terms of sheer naked power. With Derrick, ever the commanding frontman, spitting fire, it’s clear that his passion remains undimmed, and he simply dominates the stage throughout.
With the band on a roll, Kairos (from the album of the same name) maintains the momentum, once again reminding us just how vital the band’s recent albums have been, only to be followed by something even more special – the epic Guardians of Earth from Quadra. It finds Andreas at the acoustic guitar for an enigmatic introduction before the band return to issue an impassioned plea for conservation in an era where people seem increasingly content to watch the world burn. With clean vocals, soaring strings, and a choir, even if the playback does get a little lost in the mix, it does little to leaven the power of one of Quadra’s most intense pieces of music, and it is such a pleasure to hear it aired on this tour.
While the set is not long enough to allow representation from every album (Nation is a particularly brutal omission), it’s good to hear the band nod to Against with Choke – the song that first introduced the world to Derrick way back in 1998. It still sounds immense today, and it’s strangely poignant to hear Derrick bellow the chorus with all the defiance that made Against such a pivotal record in the band’s career. Even better, the band offer up a cut from Dante XXI – the stunning False – which manages to raise the hairs on the back of the neck as strings wash through the mix.
Having explored a good deal of their more recent output, the band go all out to bring the set to a close. Escape To The Void takes us all the way back to 1987 and Schizophrenia, while Kaiowas finds support band and audience members alike sharing the stage for an extended jam that transports the audience to the Brazilian jungle for a few magical moments. The band continue to surprise as, amidst a run of old favourites that includes Dead Embyronic Cells, Orgasmatron, and Troops Of Doom, they include the killer Quadra cut Agony Of Defeat. One of the most beautiful tracks the band have ever penned, it features a melody to die for and it finds Derrick offering up clean vocals as the music swirls to a heady crescendo. A brave song rendered all the more emotional given the circumstances, it is a truly special moment that further sets this stunning farewell trek apart.
The main set then ends with Inner Self and, nearly immolating the pit, Arise. With bodies flying over the barricade, it is a final reminder of Sepultura’s untrammelled power, and it’s delivered with such maniacal glee, it’s hard to believe that this is goodbye.
Inevitably, the band aren’t quite done with us yet, however, and amidst thunderous chants of SEPULTURA, they return to the stage to offer up a double header from Roots – a truncated Ratamahatta (preceded by a short but impressive drum solo) and, of course, Roots Bloody Roots. With the audience screaming every word back at the stage, it concludes an absolutely epic night that proved a perfect celebration of Sepultura’s four-decade career.
It says a great deal of Sepultura that, where most bands would have been tempted to lean heavily on nostalgia, they remain a forward-thinking outfit to the end, committed to their most recent material and justifiably so. As if any further evidence is needed as to the immense quality of the likes of Quadra and Machine Messiah, it is the way that material from those albums sits so effortlessly alongside much-loved songs from across the band’s catalogue.
Defiant to the last, Sepultura made this a night to remember and they leave a gaping void in the world of metal.
