On January 17th, a most unexpected tour package made an even more unexpected stop in the frost bitten region better known as Minnesota.

Dubbed as the “Black Metal Warfare” tour, the trek was headlined by none other than arguably the most notorious metal band in history: Mayhem. For a group with such a horrendous past, it’s surprising that they’re even together, let alone still touring around the world.

An agonizing hour after the doors opened, the opening act Revenge finally took the stage. Black metal already has a reputation for being mundane and grooveless, and Revenge did nothing to change that. Each new song they played seemed to blend with the last, and with the exception of a few members of the crowd, nobody cared for them.

On the other hand, Watain had recently recorded The Wild Hunt in 2013, an album smashing any such stereotypes tagged on the genre. Taking the stage in tattered clothes and corpse paint, Watain blasted through songs from across their body of work, and ignited one of the biggest responses I had seen a long time.

During their second song, I ditched my front row position to jump in the pit (something I do more often than I’d like to admit) and was instantly greeted by a flying beer to the face and a very large intimidating man rushing towards me.

Coming from halfway across the world, these Swedes arrived, prepared to deliver a show stealing performance. Besides their gear, they were accompanied onstage by skeletons, lit candles, an ominous fog and a grim atmosphere that certainly gave everybody goosebumps.

Following Watain’s evil inspiring set and closing song “Malfeitor,” I was sure that Mayhem could not top it, and unfortunately, they couldn’t. As big and recognizable as Norway’s most precious metal act is, they had come ill prepared to compete with such energy.

It had taken a few minutes to warm up to Mayhem’s grisly tone and approach, but once I had, I started to rather enjoy them. They outperform their records with their live performance, and since I didn’t expect much from them in the first place, this was more relieving than when Revenge stepped offstage two hours earlier. Playing songs mostly from the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album, Mayhem delivered a crowd pleasing set.

After the fake blood was wiped from fans’ faces and the last guitar picks were thrown out, it was clear that black metal was still a force to be reckoned with in the music business.