The night opens under cold, unwelcoming light, with Nidhogg dragging the room straight into the dirt.
Named after the gnawing dragon of Norse myth, the Norwegian frontman and his band scrape the stage bare of ceremony, digging into decay and inevitability rather than spectacle.
'Narcissus' scratches open the surface, followed by 'Mental Iykanthropy', feral and coarse, closer to ritual than performance. 'Transilvania' and 'Sic Luceat Lux' tighten the grip, the lighting barely lifting above shadow.
While 'Wilczyca' and 'Horda' lean into something primal – low, animal and inherited, more blood memory than modern calculation. This concludes the triplet of Wilczyca covers, the crowd displaying a collective empathy for his recent loss; his best buddy, a faithful hound it would seem.
As 'Helvete' plunges us into the bowels, and 'Twilight Of Gods' settles the room into uneasy focus, conversations drop off, with bodies listening instead.
'Wyrocznia' (KAT cover) lands with ancestral, prophetic weight, reverent and heavy, before 'Territory' (Sepultura cover) cuts through sharply, familiarity jolting the room awake with its groove.
Nidhogg - image © Clea-marie Thorne
It's not a hype set – it conditions, leaving the crowd open, groomed and ready for the blackened death metal to come.
When the lights drop completely, there's no spectacle waiting. Just discipline.
Behemoth emerge as silhouettes, Adam 'Nergal' Darski (vocals/ guitar) last to arrive but who stands in the centre, flanked by Tomasz 'Orion' Wróblewski (bass), Patryk 'Seth' Sztyber (guitar), and Zbigniew 'Inferno' Promiński (drums), all locked into formation.
Barely visible is the black-and-white backdrop while dim lighting is carving the band into high-contrast shapes. They open with 'The Shadow Elite', and it's surgical.
Inferno drives with militant precision, Orion anchors the low end like a heartbeat, while Nergal delivers with venom and control. This isn't chaos. It's order turned inward. 'Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer' follows, the Latin hanging in the air like spoken spellwork, the room tightening.
From here the set moves with authority rather than excess. 'Thy Becoming Eternal' gets a real rowdy reception from fans.
Costume changes come and go priestly, martial, funereal but never announced, never indulgent. Just part of the rite, including the consummation of blood from a goblet during Nidhogg!
Behemoth - image © Clea-marie Thorne
'Conquer All' presses forward without pause, the band trusting the weight of the material. Nergal even gives Brisbane a compliment of the profane kind! LOL.
'The Sh.t Ov God' bites hard, theatrical without tipping into parody, before 'Ecclesia Diabolica Catholica' thickens the atmosphere, sound looming rather than rushing.
When 'Cursed Angel Of Doom' lands, it feels ancient and dragged forward through time. As someone with Slavic roots, there's recognition here: the cadence, the darkness, the sense of power taken rather than granted. This is chthonic authority. Coiled and anti-hierarchical. Less cathedral, more undergrowth. Less ascension, more descent.
'Nomen Barbarvm' keeps the pressure constant, before 'Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel' unfolds slowly, ominous and oppressive. The prophecy builds, tension coiling even more, then revolt takes over completely.
Behemoth - image © Clea-marie Thorne
Across the floor, small pockets of mosh pits ignite and dissolve. There's never one collective surge, just brief ruptures in the spell before it seals again.
At the barrier, two fans in Behemoth corpse paint are locked in, mouths moving through half-remembered lyrics, occasionally mishearing and shouting the wrong lines, then laughing and sinking straight back under.
There are no crowd surfers, no attempts to disrupt the flow, just total entrancement. Bodies are rooted or pacing, eyes fixed forward and heads nodding.
'Bartzabel' pulls the room inward, chant-like and hypnotic. Named after a spirit associated with martial force, the title is often translated loosely as a summoned power of war and will, and that meaning seeps into the performance.
Behemoth - image © Clea-marie Thorne
This isn't about speed or violence, it's about control. Fists and horns are raised as the energy is being channelled rather than unleashed. The room holds its breath.
'Ov Fire And The Void' follows, sweeping and regal, destruction and rebirth feeding into each other, Inferno holding it all together with terrifying discipline. 'The Return Of Darkness And Evil' lands as lineage rather than homage, before 'Decade Ov Therion' and 'Chant for Eschaton 2000' drive the final stretch, the crowd sweat-soaked, ringing, emptied.
The set closes with 'Ojcze Nasz' (Our Father), a prayer title twisted into something colder and inverted; Hearing it sung here feels less like blasphemy and more like reclamation, the familiar stripped of comfort, offered back without mercy. No release follows. No relief. Just completion.
The lights remain harsh. The backdrop stays still. The band leave without ceremony, slipping back into the dark they brought with them. This doesn't feel like a show, it feels like an old Slavic work dragged into the present.
Behemoth turn the room into a ritual ground, light and sound moving like marks in dirt, carving the audience back to instinct, blood memory and belief. Walking out, there's that post-rite hush. Heavier steps, slower voices, something ancient, chthonic, stirred and travelling home with you.
If this tour crosses your path, you don't watch it, you submit to it and then carry it with you.
