Avatar command KEMBA Live! with their Carnival of Metal
There are nights when the air feels like a damp towel pressed against the back of your neck. The air is cold, heavy, itching to break into rain. Columbus gave us one of those evenings on November 22. It is the kind of night where you duck into a bar not for the ambiance, but for survival from the elements (and possibly a beer, a shot, maybe a plate of something fried).
Instead of hiding, I made my way to the hollow, echoing grounds of KEMBA Live!, joining a migratory wave of metal fans, all of us drawn there with the same unspoken purpose: communion. A loud, theatrical, unapologetically over-the-top communion. Avatar was in town.
Yes, Avatar… those juggernauts of carnival metal, ringleaders in a world they built from scraps of circus tents and guitar strings. I first stumbled into the band when they were still carving out space on makeshift festival stages. Back then they weren’t yet global headliners. But even then, everything that would make them Avatar was already there: the whimsy, the chaos, and the precision. Flash forward to today, and the band is selling out tours across the world. Time hasn’t sanded down their edges, success hasn’t diluted the weird. Their connection with the fans is still electric and honest.
Approaching KEMBA Live! there were hundreds of people buzzing with pre-show adrenaline, dozens in the signature black-and-white facepaint of frontman Johannes Eckerström. Avatar fans are a different breed. Artists, misfits, accountants, teenagers, parents. People who showed up not just for the music but for each other.
Before the Church of Avatar opened its doors, Alien Weaponry stepped out to deliver the sermon. A three-piece from New Zealand with a sound built from groove metal, nu-metal, thrash, and something ancient simmering beneath it. Their new album Te Rā blends English and te reo Māori, the language and heartbeat of their culture.
Their drummer walked out alone first—young, steady, eyes locked forward. And then he began the haka, the traditional Māori war dance which displays strength and unity with fierce cultural pride. It’s used to honor heritage, but also to summon a collective spirit. That’s what hit the crowd. The room fell silent, then roared to life, devouring every second of the Alien Weaponry set. If the job of an opener is to stir the pot, raise the temperature, and get the blood flowing, then these three delivered. I can’t wait to see them again, ideally from behind the lens.
And then, the headliner.
The lights dropped. Stage fog rolled in with theatrical confidence. A platform slid forward carrying three cloaked figures like something from an occult opera. Avatar launched into “Captain Goat,” and the place went feral. From there, the set was a delirious sprint through their catalog: “Silence in the Age of Apes,” “The Eagle Has Landed,” “Bloody Angel,” “Colossus,” and “Howling at the Waves.” Heads banging, hair flying, Johannes pacing the stage like a demented conductor guiding an orchestra of willing sinners.
Avatar can transform a room. Between costume changes, dramatic lighting shifts, and those perfectly timed theatrical pauses, it felt less like a metal show and more like a fever dream, staged by people who understand exactly how far spectacle can carry you.
And yet, for all the fire and frenzy, the quieter moments landed. “Tower,” “Let It Burn,” and “The Dirt I’m Buried In” — all a reminder that beneath the facepaint and chaos is a band that understands melody, storytelling, and the beauty of slowing down just long enough to make the fast parts hit.
They closed the main set with “Tonight We Must Be Warriors,” a title that felt more more like a command. And then the encore erupted: “Dance Devil Dance,” “Smells Like a Freakshow,” and the night’s explosive finale of “Hail the Apocalypse.”
By the end, the crowd was baptized in sweat, everyone smiling and slightly shell-shocked. Avatar is what happens when a band decides that metal can be theater and theater can be catharsis. They are still whimsical, still chaotic, still deeply committed to the show as an art form. And the fans return that devotion tenfold.
Some nights you don’t just watch a show. Some nights you join a circus.
