Avatar call themselves the metal circus, and it’s a reputation that precedes them: the five-piece are best known for their outrageous clown aesthetic and overblown personalities, an image they’ve cultivated since 2012’s ‘Black Waltz.’ Now touring to promote their tenth album ‘Don’t Go In The Forest,’ the group are riding higher than ever, packing out Nottingham’s Rock City to within an inch of its life— as frontman Johannes Eckerström would go on to joke in regards to the venue, “I’ll take Ozzy’s rock bottom any day.” The metal circus was in full swing on Tuesday night, and my goodness is it a sight to behold.

Witch Club Satan

Say what you will about the night’s opening act, but it was certainly memorable. Witch Club Satan strayed far from the joyous energy of the event, kicking things off on a positively frightening note as they crept out onto the stage as part of some occult ritual. Their set was more of an atmospheric showcase than a metal show, dominated as it was by chanting and displays of all things unnerving— the trio’s commitment to their cult-like aesthetic was certainly impressive, right down to the band’s decision to strip down between songs. From the interesting woollen head-pieces they adorned during their entrance to the classic black metal corpse paint that defined their style, they absolutely looked the part, and acted it too, even coming down into the audience to scream their guts out. As you might imagine, a performance of this intensity could be quite unsettling, though that’s not necessarily a knock against it in-and-of-itself: rather, it was disappointing to see these theatrics crowd out the actual music.

Oftentimes, the black metal songs Witch Club Satan played at Rock City felt like interludes between the ritualistic breaks, rather than the other way around— the trio brought few songs to the table, and the ones they did pull out rarely stuck with you. The band continued to devote themselves to their cultish look even while playing, but the idea of these satanic witches picking up modern instruments felt a little awkward regardless: at the end of the day, that creepy aesthetic needed to serve a musical performance, and it was here that the opening act faltered. Spjelkavik and company were clearly the least technically-proficient act of the night, as you might expect from a black’n’roll act— the brief handful of tracks performed felt overly loose and hazy, lacking the infectious rhythms or melodic vocal performances of the following groups. When all was said and done, tracks like ‘Fresh Blood, Fresh P*ssy’ and ‘Black Metal Is Krig’ were transformed into vague, instinct washes of sound in the live setting, no doubt aided by a spotty mix: that lack of musical intrigue had the whole thing feeling rather hollow, despite the band’s conviction.

Alien Weaponry

It’s rare to see a support act garner so much attention as Alien Weaponry, but then again, not every opener is quite so revered as the New Zealand three-piece: even during their sound check, the group had a packed-out Rock City thoroughly enthralled. There was no faulting their energy on stage, which seemed near-boundless: with more room to work with than Witch Club Satan, Alien Weaponry exercised the freedom to jump around the stage, head banging ferociously. The spirit of Van Halen’s ‘Jump,’ which played before the show, echoed throughout, pushing the crowd to form numerous mosh and circle pits — closer ‘Kai Tangata’ earned itself a particularly vicious wall of death that confirmed this opening act as something truly special.

The trio practiced a delicate balance between enthusiasm and execution, tearing through this brief but thrilling set with absolute mastery. Alien Weaponry’s vocal prowess that on full display, filling the chorus of a cut like ‘Mau Moko’ with enviable three-part vocal harmonies that seemed almost effortless for the group— brothers Lewis and Henry de Jong were obviously having the time of their lives pulling these songs off so successfully, leaving bassist Tūranga Morgan-Edmonds to bring the pure intensity. If the set had any issue at all, it was simply that a group this exciting deserved more time to truly shine: Alien Weaponry filled out their thirty-minutes confidently, and could easily have kept Rock City entertained for another hour. The furious riffs of new songs like ‘Taniwha’ and ‘Te Riri o Tāwhirimātea’ simply demanded that you head bang, like the trio were physically forcing you into the motion. We could’ve watched the show for far, far longer— Alien Weaponry are the kind of act that must make headliners nervous.

Avatar

And finally, to the main event: Avatar. The band had stated, leading up to the tour, that this was to be their boldest and grandest showing to date, declaring that “if you’ve seen us before, that was only the warm-up.” Indeed, the Swedish five-piece’s ‘In The Airwaves’ show was punctuated by a ludicrous number of scene changes and dazzling theatrics, befitting the groups’ larger-than-life personas. Opener ‘Captain Goat’ was transformed into a cinematic moment thanks to the dramatic lighting and hooded cloaks the group adorned— they’d go on to dress as both goofy clowns and stately nobles before the show was done, taking every opportunity to blow their budget. At times, the transitions and set pieces grew so elaborate as to become outright ridiculous, but that was always part of the fun: the gigantic throne the group produced for ‘Legend of the King,’ the grand piano used in ‘Howling at the Waves,’ the second (yes, second) drum kit employed for ‘Colossus’ and the remote-controlled balloon that set-up encore opener ‘Don’t Go In The Forest’ were just some of the hilarious and dazzling antics.

Where another band might hide behind their props, Avatar continually strived to be the entire of attention: they are performers, through-and-through, and ones you just couldn’t take your eyes off. Eckerström was clearly the star of the show, bounding around the stage with an unhinged, carnival-esque energy that very few frontmen could keep up for so long— the man was electric, though let us not skip over the rest of Avatar, who were all clearly having a blast up on that stage. The group rolled out six tracks from new album ‘Don’t Go In The Forest,’ grinning just as hard for the thrashy madness of ‘In The Airwaves’ as they were for the marching-band style of ‘Tonight We Must Be Warriors.’ Guitarists Tim Öhrström and Jonas Jarlsby sauntered from side to side with reckless abandon (an impressive feat, given how demanding so much of this setlist could be), delivering performances that pushed cuts like ‘Bloody Angel’ and ‘Silence in the Age of Apes’ to newfound heights. There was no faulting the metal circus— the show may have been heavily scripted and plotted out, but the band’s character shined through in every moment.

This was a lengthy show, with eighteen tracks taking up almost a full two hours, but you wouldn’t have known it from how fast time flew by: Avatar were hardly breaking a sweat, sounding just as energised and technically flawless during ‘Captain Goat’ as they were when ‘Hail the Apocalypse’ rounded things out. Eckerström is a vocal chameleon, flying between harsh growls and glorious clean vocals without much difficulty: he was ever an entertaining figure on the stage, whether he was head banging like his life depended on it or telling the amusing story of a missing trombone during Avatar’s last Nottingham show. At every point, you could see the band sowing chaos in the crowd, pulling off wildly impressive guitar solos and drum parts, and clearly indulging in a sense of glee while doing so: songs like ‘The Dirt I’m Buried In,’ ’The Eagle Has Landed’ and ‘Let It Burn’ were all fuelled by nothing but joy from one of metal’s most outright fun acts. If you only get to see one band in 2026, make it Avatar: the metal circus are simply the best around.