King Diamond in NYC

November 22, 2019

The legendary and one and only King Diamond blessed Brooklyn, New York with one of his rare appearances. The event was held at elaborate King’s Theater was a sold-out It is great to see in 2019 an audience to see the King. The excitement of the environment was felt outside the venue. Many fans even tried their cosplay attempts at the iconic corpse paint of King Diamond. Drunken revelers showed off their best falsetto while singing “Welcome Home” while many people either sang along or just stared in amusement. The merchandise booth was constantly busy as a sea of black t-shirts lined up for some of the awesome memorabilia. The crowd was also representing possibly every single heavy metal t-shirt. But regardless if it was a Motor Head shirt or a Misfits shirt everyone was here for the King. The 13 song set represents not only its past but also a new song for an upcoming release. The elaborate stage set up represented a dreary and haunting looking castle or mansion, with a hospital cross high above. The theatrics is a rarity in this day in age. No one does it quite like the King. The performances feature KING DIAMOND’s current band, comprising of guitarists Andy LaRocque and Mike Wead, bassist Pontus Egberg and drummer Matt Thompson.

As the house speakers played one of King Diamonds influences, Uriah Heep’s “ The Wizard “, the house lights faded a tape play of the intro of the new album titled ‘St. Lucifer’s Hospital. As King was led out onto the stage attached to a stretcher chair, the hospital cross slowly transforms into the obligatory inverted cross. The song “The Candle” was the opener as people were very receptive and hopeful to see what will happen tonight, while many didn’t vocalize it, we all wondered “ Will we see Grand Ma? “ The next song was “Behind These Walls” from the underrated album, “The Eye”. The next two songs performed from the classic album “Abigail”, with a full tape play intro of “The Funeral” leading directly with “Arrival” and “Mansion in Darkness”. The band was tight in its sound and flawless. As this is going on a woman in white holding a lantern appeared doing some form of shadow casting” added to the eerie setup. The house speakers then played a playback tape the haunting keyboard and narration of “Let it Be Done” from the album “Conspiracy” which segues into the song “Voodoo”. King Diamond then took a needed breather to introduce his band. The band then played “Halloween” followed by the new song “Masquerade of Madness” which will be on the forthcoming album “The Institute”. The next bombastic set of songs followed by another snippet from the album ‘Them”. They played “Out of the Asylum” which sent the audience into a frenzy. As the band played “Welcome Home” we got to see Grandma prepared just like we wanted, without a bed, in her rocking chair with the teapot that Missy found. The crowd grew more excited as they played “The Invisible Guest” and “Sleepless Nights”. We get to hear King at his most emotional vocal delivery on this song. As the night went on they performed and closed their set list with a song from ‘Fatal Portrait”, “The Lake”. As King show appreciation and introduce the actress and his wife who was doing background vocals, the band proceed to stage exit left only to be greeted with cheers demanding an encore. As King and his band came back to the stage and performed “Burn” from The Eye album. King Diamond dedicated the final song to his fallen musical brother and former bass player Tim Hansen, who lost his battle with cancer. The intense song was felt. King shouted in a very emotional voice thanking the New York audience. This winter tour is a must-see, catch him in your area. The tour will wrap up in early December. Hopefully, we will be blessed with another tour when his new album will see the light of day sometime next year.