Concert review: Powerwolf and Dragonforce | 09.20.25, The Pageant (with photo gallery)

Photo of Powerwolf by Laura Jerele

Heavy metal was held church last weekend, and it had more than just the hallmarks of your normal metal show. Circle pits. A merch line hundreds of people long the entire night. Over (and I mean OVER) the top stage props. A heavy metal mass complete with blessing. Heavy metal disco dancing. Dueling guitar solos—lots of them. Many, many people dressed as nuns. Insanely fantastic music. Arpeggios meets Nintendo virtuosity. And to top it all off, a stuffed chicken thrown into the crowd for surfing and a very bouncy visit to the balcony, much to the delight of everyone there! That does not even begin to scratch the list of the things I witnessed at the Powerwolf and Dragonforce show last night at The Pageant.

Headliners Powerwolf had a totally kickass stage setup that was gothic and larger than life, and a performance that was pretty much that as well. Their power-metal-meets-speed-metal was as much fun as it was blistering and articulate, completely catchy hooks, and riffs that were at times dance worthy and other times total headbangers. Yeah…I loved every minute of this show.

Their guitarists Benjamin Buss (lead) and David “Charles Greywolf” Vogt (rhythm) moved in unison at times, flying Vs in hand, complete with their own version of heavy metal choreography, trading licks as much as they traded sides of the stage to rile up the already noisy crowd. Seriously, this crowd was loud! Powerwolf’s music is very much intended to be sung along to, and that’s exactly what this crowd did! And yet despite the intensely Gothic vibe with makeup and metal, there was so much humor interjected from lead singer Karsten “Attila Dorn” Brill, cracking jokes when he missed a noted whilst doing a traditional metal singalong, and then when he danced with keyboardist Falk Maria Schlege to introduce the song “Dancing with the Dead.” It was all quite the performance, heavy and doomy, but the music was truly a force. Their setlist included:

Bless ‘em With the Blade
Incense & Iron
Army of the Night
Sinners of the Seven Seas
Amen & Attack
Dancing with the Dead
Armata Strigoi
Stossgebet
Demons Are a Girl’s Best Friend
Fire and Forgive
We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints
Alive or Undead
Heretic Hunters
Sainted by the Storm
Blood for Blood 

Encore:
Sanctified With Dynamite
We Drink Your Blood
Werewolves of Armenia

And then, there was the show opener, Dragonforce, bringing every bit of gaming to life, mixing heavy metal mastery with songs fit for video games. Nintendo metal, anyone? Their guitarist, Herman Li, playing alongside Sam Totman was like a throwback to the ’80s with a Paul Gilbert/Racer X flair, bringing the speed of video games and comic books to life. Again, dueling guitar licks were traded back and forth with ease, showing me that these people did not just sit and play games, these are steadfast musicians, here to perform. And they did it with excellent diversity. Bass player Alicia Vigil was right in the pocket the whole night and smiling and engaging with the crowd and she was an absolute blast to watch.  Lead singer Marc Hudson did so much to engage the crowd, making sure there were constant circle pits and people marching, and when they weren’t doing that, he made them engage with an oversized stuffed chicken that he threw into the crowd to not only be a part of the circle pic, but he challenged the audience to get the chicken up to the balcony. And yes, after many attempts, that damn chicken surfed its way up to the balcony, stuffing flying out giving us fluffy shrapnel as souvenirs.

I love a good metal show, but this was next level in the way that it was extremely well played, we witnessed serious musicianship that was, at times, very playful, but the music stands on its own with two very accomplished and quite popular bands. And thank you, St. Louis for being such a kickass and loud crowd for this one! | Laura Jerele