King Diamond/ Exodus

Coming up on 30 years (wow, I remember buying the album on vinyl in 1987) since its release, King Diamond finally gets to play “Abigail” in its entirety live. Following triple bypass surgery in 2010, and quitting smoking, King became reactive on the touring circuit since 2012, with longtime guitarist Andy LaRocque, Mike Weed on second guitar, drummer Matt Thompson, and newest addition on bass Pontus Edberg. Within the King Diamond catalogue, “Abigail” is easily in the Top 3 Albums, and naturally should be performed front to back live. The timing was also right being since King’s return to the road, the stage production has also been up scaled by leaps and bounds since the 90s.

Prior to the “Abigail” set, fans were treated to a few classics. Opening with the intro “Out Of The Asylum” into ‘Welcome Home’ and ‘Sleepless Nights’ brought grandma (as always) to the stage, and a taste of the story from “Them”. ‘Eye Of The Witch”, off “The Eye” transports the listener to the French Inquisition and witch trials. Unfortunately, ‘The Spiders Lullaby’ made an appearance at the beginning of the tour and was dropped?? The crunchy riff and traditional heavy metal delivery to the holiday favorite ‘Halloween’ is a must have in the set and packed a massive punch live. Closing the first act out were the Mercyful Fate classic ‘Come To The Sabbath’ and as a treat the resurrected haunting melody of ‘Mellissa’.

If you have seen King since 2012, the stage set is very theatrical and complimenting to his songs, a few more bucks and it can be on par with Alice Cooper’s show. Giant backdrops change time to time but for the most part to look like a church. A set of stairs were on each side of the drum riser, with catwalk across the back, complete with two large, four smaller gargoyles perched on pillars. Two giant inverted crosses hung from the ceiling, with and a lighted pentagram (for ‘Come To The Sabbath’)the finishing touches.

Following the intro tape to the “Abigail” set, the story’s main character, Abigail, is first brought out in a white coffin, then on stage in her crib for ‘Omens’. A female enters the stage often to be part of the show as the character of Miriam, the pregnant mother of baby Abigail. Interacting with King as he sings lines of the story to her, she first appears during the song ‘A Mansion In Darkness’ with lantern in hand, returns for ‘The Possession’, and her ghost child’s song. Hooded figures remove acoustic guitars for Andy and Mike for ‘The 7th Day of July 1777’ and story closer ‘Black Horsemen’.

If you missed this one time celebration your lucky because two cities were recorded for DVD. Let’s hope the same thing is done in some capacity for “Them”/Conspiracy”.