Sepultura At L'Olympia

Saying goodbye is never easy.  But, when done before a sold-out crowd of diehard fans, some of the emotional sting can be taken out of the moment.  With that in mind, Montreal metal fans turned out en masse to say good-bye to one of their favourite bands, and Brazilian imports, Sepultura.  After 40 years of existence, Sepultura have decided to call it a day and have embarked on one final tour that will see them perform over the world for an 18 month period.  During 40 of those dates, live tracks will be recorded to eventually be released as a huge live compilation.  This past Thursday, Sepultura brought their farewell tour, named ‘Celebrating Life Through Death’ to the Théâtre L’Olympia. If you’re going to throw a good-bye party, you better make sure to have a good set of friends with you.  Sepultura definitely surrounded themselves with an awesome set of tour partners.  Even after three bands who had given their all, there was still a rumble in the crowd as we waited for the band of honour to hit the stage.  After 40 years, this would be the final time that Sepultura would hit one of our stages.  Though none of the actual original members remain, this version of Sepultura has been together the longest, save for drummer Greyson Nekrutman who just joined the band this year.  Classic and newer songs alike, vocalist Derrick Green has made them his own while guitarist Andreas Kisser is a shredding machine on the guitar.  Sepultura opened with a duo of songs from their awesome Chaos A.D album and at that point, all bets were off.  The crowd had already been whipped in to a frenzy as they did their best to enjoy every final song from their heroes.  While they were taking in the unforgettable moment, I couldn't help but think that perhaps they were trying to make the moment unforgettable for the band as well.  Judging by the smiles up on the stage, that crowd certainly left their mark.  By this point, I have seen several ‘goodbye performances’ by other bands, so I take those words with a grain of salt, but since my crystal ball is not currently working, I have no choice but to take the band at their word.  One thing is certain, if this was our final time seeing Sepultura, they certainly left an unforgettable final impression.  All of the photographs were taken at f/3.2 while using various different shutter speeds, ISO settings and focal lengths.  Here are the rest of the photographs that I took of Sepultura as they performed on the stage at the Théâtre L'Olympia.

If you would like to find out more about Sepultura and their music, you can do so by following the link to their website.  If you would like to see the photographs that I took of Harvest, Agnostic Front and Obituary, who also performed that night, you can do so by following the respective links.  Much thanks goes out to Daniel Regan and Anne Swallow of Feat First Management and Christopher Gonda of V13 Media for getting me a pass to shoot the show, it is very much appreciated.  It's true that saying goodbye is never easy, but when a band leaves behind such awesome material, and you have great memories of their performances, it makes things a little easier.  Thanks for the tunes Sepultura.  May you live forever in the collectives memories and record collections of your fans.