When the night was over, everyone who walked out of The Steelhouse in Omaha knew the score. Avatar had delivered. Vocalist Johannes Eckerström and company carried the full weight of their Swedish metal lineage and made it look effortless, tearing through a colossal circus-metal set that stuck around long after the house lights came up.
Frozen Soul opened. The Fort Worth, Texas death metal outfit — formed in 2018 — set the tone immediately, and served as a reminder of what an opening act is supposed to do. Anyone who showed up early got rewarded. Frontman Chad Green works a crowd the way seasoned veterans do, connecting and engaging without theatrics. The band is raw and to the point. They play hard, they play fast, and they make no apologies. Systematic and infectious, compelling and determined, “honest” is probably the one word that comes closest to capturing them, though it undersells it.
Fleshgod Apocalypse followed, celebrating their 2024 album Opera — a 10-act work built around frontman Francesco Paoli‘s 2021 mountain climbing accident. The Italian symphonic death metal band transformed The Steelhouse into something closer to an opera house, draped in red and gold lighting. When lead vocalist Veronica Bordacchini walked out in full operatic regalia, the room went quiet — the kind of quiet a crowd falls into when something unexpected demands their full attention.
That stillness didn’t last. As Paoli on vocals and bass, Fabio Bartoletti on guitar, Francesco Ferrini on piano, and Eugene Ryabchenko on drums came in, the room erupted. The result was cinematic — more live score than concert. Glorious and merciless. Everything they did carried weight. Fleshgod Apocalypse are genuinely unique and an absolute must-see.
Avatar was formed in 2001 in Mölndal, Sweden. Ten studio albums in, they arrived in Omaha behind Don’t Go Into The Forest, and they came prepared. Eckerström walked out alone, holding a lantern. Drummer John Alfredsson was lit up behind his kit as blue light, and fog rolled across the stage, and “Captain Goat” kicked off a 21-song set that ran the full spectrum — gloomy, murky, relentless — and demanded headbanging without apology.
Eckerström‘s vocal range is something else. The makeup is not a gimmick; it ties directly into what Avatar is about — disorder, folly, defiance. By the time the encore opened with the eerie “Don’t Go Into The Forest,” the crowd had been wrung out, and they still wanted more. The pit kept moving until the final note. The whole experience felt like riding a roller coaster where you’re not entirely sure the car is going to hold the track, but you ride it anyway. That is an Avatar show. It’s not simply a concert to see and hear; it requires survival instinct.
