The choral swells of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere Mei, Deus drift through the audience at Manchester Arena. It’s Saturday night, the mood is high and a cathedral is being built on stage.
Behind the curtain, we catch glimpses of the sort of theatre normally associated with the Iron Maidens, Rammsteins and Alice Coopers of this world. Giant steps. High walls and arches. Ornate stained glass window backdrops. More dry ice than Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights video, dotted with a scattering of men in hard hats. Stonehenge this is not.
The curtain drops. The opening guitar glitter of Kaisarion bursts into our faces. Punters wearing nuns’ habits, crucifixes and corpse paint gaze up like children in a sweet shop, while Nameless Ghouls in gas masks are illuminated by cracking pyrotechnics. As riffs and drum thunder roll out like groovy cavalry, marrying heavy mystique with Def Leppard-sized hooks, it’s easy to see why Metallica and Dave Grohl are fans.
The most rapturous applause, though, is reserved for their mercurial leader. An impishly charismatic figure, masked by black-andwhite face paint. Hair slicked back with grey. Microphone in hand.
Part Victorian military dandy, part Joel Grey’s MC from Cabaret in tight black skinny jeans and black leather gloves, Papa Emeritus IV strides, skips and gesticulates with the precision and campery of a seasoned Broadway star. And although there are thousands watching, those painted eyes of his have an oddly penetrative, Mona Lisa-esque effect. All-seeing. It’s as if he’s looking
