Ghost are an unusual band; a concept stretched to enthralling artistic, almost abstract boundaries.
The band is fronted by Tobias Forge, who was for a long time semi-anonymous (he refused to take off his mask in public until last year), and musically they are something of a throwback to the metal bands of the 70s, albeit with substantial thematic undertones.
Their shtick is controversial in some quarters: Forge plays an evolving line up of ritualistic, semi-satanic priests, a new one for each album, delivering riotous songs that play around the fringes of his theme. It’s in a live setting, though, that the band come to life.
Ghost dropped into Dublin for the first time on Wednesday night (they had previously played Slane, but as Metallica's support act, and so lacking the full weight of their substantial stage set-up). Their reputation preceded them: a band that came to life live, theatrical and charismatic, raising their niche music to the level of a genuine arena band, not unlike German pyromaniacs Rammstein.
And so it proved, in a show that was theatrical chaos from the off. The simple physicality of the stage is a huge part of it, revealed as it is by a dropping curtain as the first chords echo through the closing stanza of a creepy introductory nursery rhyme.
The stage is set like a huge church, the previous characters played by Forge occupying stained glass windows along the back, and the backing section of the band placed atop a platform designed to look like an ancient cathedral staircase.
Forge and his metal-masked minions of an accompanying band are just flamboyant as the stage they perform on. Opening with punchy single Rats, the crowd already screaming along, there’s a strutting campness to Forge’s rendition of ‘Cardinal Copia’, the star of the band’s most recent album ‘Prequelle’, and a song that Forge has been hinting recently is soon to be semi-retired.
What follows is a choreographed dance with the audience and his surroundings that sees Forge fully exploit the capabilities of his stage. There are enormous, gushing spouts of flames and smoke, confetti clouds and fireworks, but there’s subtlety, too: the atmospheric smokiness of some of the slower songs, or the way the spotlight turns the singers outstretched arms into the silhouette of an upturned cross projected onto steps at the back of the stage.
It’s not the hits that are necessarily the highlights either. It’s a show that seems to build towards a series of massive late climaxes (Forge, incidentally, isn’t afraid of a flirtatious sexual reference in his patter). We flit from a comical guitar-off between his two lead backing men, which ends in riffing on Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town, to entire tracks played over the unnerving minor-key echo of a horror movie.
Ghost occasionally get called satanic. They would certainly offend the very religious, but equally, theirs is an incredibly clever, reference-loaded take on darker times. The fiery crescendo of Year Zero, in particular, has a genuinely intimidating feel to it live, and, coupled with a devilishly haunting little interlude, and Ghost’s best song, the pulsating Square Hammer, is the perfect ending to an utterly enrapturing show.
It’s bitty, slow-building and at times, notably reverential towards its theme. Think of it as metal theatre; part Andrew Lloyd-Webber (an influence Forge himself acknowledges), part 70s hair metal, and 100% wonderfully overblown performance art. It works.
But here’s the thing: I don't find Ghost's music all that compelling in its own right.
Live, though, with the full power of Forge’s characterisation and the clever staging unfolding theatrically before you, they are a fantastic demonstration of just why staging and persona at gigs can matter so much. Forge looks like he’s taken lessons in mime, in how to walk in front of an audience, and in dramatic mannerisms.
For pure spectacle, Wednesday night might have been the best gig I’ve seen in Dublin since Roger Water’s full-scale rendition of The Wall from start to finish at the same venue in 2011. And that’s quite the compliment.
